THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

SANTA  BARBARA 

COLLEGE  OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 


PRESENTED  BY 


MR. AND  MRS.R.W.VAUGHAN 


i 

e 


r--  y 


\*i 


W:\ 


ML 


'^ft 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES 

OF 

MEN  AND   BOOKS 


[Author's  Bdition] 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES 


OF 


MEN    AND    BOOKS 


BY 


ROBERT    LOUIS    STEVENSON 


NEW  YORK 
CHARLES    SCRIBNER'S    SONS 

1895 

\_Ail  rights  reserved^ 


PR 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
SANTA  BAK-iARA  COLLEGE  LIBRARY 


TO 


THOMAS     STEVENSON 

CIVIL    ENGINEER 

BY   WHOSE    DEVICES   THE   GREAT  SEA    LIGHTS    IN   EVERY    QUARTER 

OF   THE   WORLD   NOW   SHINE   MORE    BRIGHTLY 

THIS  VOLUME  IS  IN  I.OVE  AND   GRATITUDE 
DEDICATED  BY  HIS  SON 

THE  AUTHOR 


CONTENTS 


Preface, 

Victor  Hugo's  Romances, 
Some  Aspects  of  Robert  Burns,  . 
Walt  Whitman,       .... 
Henry  David  Thoreau  :    His  Charac 

ter  and  Opinions, 
Yoshida-Torajiro.    .... 
Francois  Villon,  Student,  Poet,  and 

Housebreaker,      .... 
Charles  of  Orleans, 
Samuel  Pepys,  .... 

John  Knox  and  Women, 


7 
27 

59 
104 

137 
174 

191 
229 

275 
307 


PREFACE 

BY  WAY   OF  CRITICISM.    ■ 

These  studies  are  collected  from  the  monthly  press. 
One  appeared  in  the  New  Quarterly,  one  in  Macmil- 
lati's,  and  the  rest  in  the  Cornhill  Magazi?ie.  To  the 
Cornhill  I  owe  a  double  debt  of  thanks  ;  first,  that  I 
was  received  there  in  the  very  best  society,  and  under 
the  eye  of  the  very  best  of  editors  ;  and  second,  that 
the  proprietors  have  allowed  me  to  republish  so  con- 
siderable an  amount  of  copy. 

These  nine  worthies  have  been  brought  together 
from  many  different  ages  and  countries.  Not  the 
most  erudite  of  men  could  be  perfectly  prepared  to 
deal  with  so  many  and  such  various  sides  of  human 
life  and  manners.  To  pass  a  true  judgment  upon 
Knox  and  Burns  implies  a  grasp  upon  the  very  deep- 
est strain  of  thought  in  Scotland, — a  country  far  more 
essentially  different  from  England  than  many  parts  of 
America  ;  for,  in  a  sense,  the  first  of  these  men  re- 
created Scotland,  and  the  second  is  its  most  essentially 


8  PREFA CE,  BY  WAY  OF  CRITICISM. 

national  production.  To  treat  fitly  of  Hugo  and  Vil- 
lon would  involve  yet  wider  knowledge,  not  only  of  a 
country  foreign  to  the  author  by  race,  history,  and  re- 
ligion, but  of  the  growth  and  liberties  of  art.  Of  the 
two  Americans,  Whitman  and  Thoreau,  each  is  the 
type  of  something  not  so  much  realized  as  widely 
sought  after  among  the  late  generations  of  their  coun- 
trymen ;  and  to  see  them  clearly  in  a  nice  relation  to 
the  society  that  brought  them  forth,  an  author  would 
require  a  large  habit  of  life  among  modern  Ameri- 
cans. As  for  Yoshida,  I  have  already  disclaimed  re- 
sponsibility ;  it  was  but  my  hand  that  held  the  pen. 

In  truth,  these  are  but  the  readings  of  a  literary 
vagrant.  One  book  led  to  another,  one  study  to  an- 
other. The  first  was  published  with  trepidation. 
Since  no  bones  were  broken,  the  second  was  launched 
with  greater  confidence.  So,  by  insensible  degrees,  a 
young  man  of  our  generation  acquires,  in  his  own  eyes, 
a  kind  of  roving  judicial  commission  through  the 
ages  ;  and,  having  once  escaped  the  perils  of  the 
Freemans  and  the  Furnivalls,  sets  himself  up  to 
right  the  wrongs  of  universal  histor}'-  and  criticism. 
Now,  it  is  one  thing  to  write  with  enjoyment  on  a 
subject  while  the  story  is  hot  in  your  mind  from  re- 
cent reading,  colored  with  recent  prejudice  ;  and  it  is 
quite  another  business  to  put  these  writings   coldly 


PREFACE,  BY  WAY  OF  CRITICISM.  9 

forth  again  in  a  bound  volume.  We  are  most  of  us 
attached  to  our  opinions  ;  that  is  one  of  the  "  natural 
affections"  of  which  we  hear  so  much  in  youth  ;  but 
few  of  us  are  altogether  free  from  paralyzing  doubts 
and  scruples.  For  my  part,  I  have  a  small  idea  of 
the  degree  of  accuracy  possible  to  man,  and  I  feel  sure 
these  studies  teem  with  error.  One  and  all  were  writ- 
ten with  genuine  interest  in  the  subject ;  many,  how- 
ever, have  been  conceived  and  finished  with  imperfect 
knowledge ;  and  all  have  lain,  from  beginning  to 
end,  under  the  disadvantages  inherent  in  this  style  of 
writing. 

Of  these  disadvantages  a  word  must  here  be  said. 
The  writer  of  short  studies,  having  to  condense  in  a 
few  pages  the  events  of  a  whole  lifetime,  and  the  effect 
on  his  own  mind  of  many  various  volumes,  is  bound, 
above  all  things,  to  make  that  condensation  logical 
and  striking.  For  the  only  justification  of  his  writing 
at  all  is  that  he  shall  present  a  brief,  reasoned,  and 
memorable  view.  By  the  necessity  of  the  case,  all  the 
more  neutral  circumstances  are  omitted  from  his  nar- 
rative ;  and  that  of  itself,  by  the  negative  exaggeration 
of  which  I  have  spoken  in  the  text,  lends  to  the  mat- 
ter in  hand  a  certain  false  and  specious  glitter.  By 
the  necessity  of  the  case,  again,  he  is  forced  to  view 
his  subject  throughout  in  a  particular  illumination, 


lO         PREFACE,  BY  WAY  OF  CRITICISM. 

like  a  studio  artifice.  Like  Hales  with  Pepjs,  he 
must  nearly  break  his  sitter's  neck  to  get  the  proper 
shadows  on  the  portrait.  It  is  from  one  side  only 
that  he  has  time  to  represent  his  subject.  The  side 
selected  will  either  be  the  one  most  striking  to  himself, 
or  the  one  most  obscured  by  controversy  ;  and  in 
both  cases  that  will  be  the  one  most  liable  to  strained 
and  sophisticated  reading.  In  a  biography,  this  and 
that  is  displayed  ;  the  hero  is  seen  at  home,  playing 
the  flute  ;  the  different  tendencies  of  his  work  come, 
one  after  another,  into  notice  ;  and  thus  something 
like  a  true,  general  impression  of  the  subject  may  at 
last  be  struck.  But  in  the  short  study,  the  writer, 
having  seized  his  * '  point  of  view, ' '  must  keep  his  eye 
steadily  to  that.  He  seeks,  perhaps,  rather  to  differ- 
entiate than  truly  to  characterize.  The  proportions  of 
the  sitter  must  be  sacrificed  to  the  proportions  of  the 
portrait ;  the  lights  are  heightened,  the  shadows  over- 
charged ;  the  chosen  expression,  continually  forced, 
may  degenerate  at  length  into  a  grimace  ;  and  we 
have  at  best  something  of  a  caricature,  at  worst  a 
calumny.  Hence,  if  they  be  readable  at  all,  and  hang 
together  by  their  own  ends,  the  peculiar  convincing 
lorce  of  these  brief  representations.  They  take  so  lit- 
tle a  while  to  read,  and  yet  in  that  little  w^hile  the  sub- 
ject is  so  repeatedly  introduced  in  the  same  light  and 


PREFACE,  BY  WAY  OF  CRITICISM.  il 

with  the  same  expression,  that,  by  sheer  force  of  repe- 
tition, that  view  is  imposed  upon  the  reader.  The 
two  Enghsh  masters  of  the  style,  Macaulay  and  Car- 
lyle,  largely  exemplify  its  dangers.  Carlyle,  indeed, 
had  so  much  more  depth  and  knowledge  of  the  heart, 
his  portraits  of  mankind  are  felt  and  rendered  with  so 
much  more  poetic  comprehension,  and  he,  like  his 
favorite  Ram  Dass,  had  a  fire  in  his  belly  so  much 
more  hotly  burning  than  the  patent  reading  lamp  by 
which  Macaulay  studied,  that  it  seems  at  first  sight 
hardly  fair  to  bracket  them  together.  But  the  "  point 
of  view"  was  imposed  by  Carlyle  on  the  men  he 
judged  of  in  his  writings  with  an  austerity  not  only 
cruel  but  almost  stupid.  They  are  too  often  broken 
outright  on  the  Procrustean  bed  ;  they  are  probably 
always  disfigured.  The  rhetorical  artifice  of  Macaulay 
is  easily  spied  ;  it  will  take  longer  to  appreciate  the 
moral  bias  of  Carlyle.  So  with  all  writers  who  insist 
on  forcing  some  significance  from  all  that  comes  be- 
fore them  ;  and  the  writer  of  short  studies  is  bound, 
by  the  necessity  of  the  case,  to  write  entirely  in  that 
spirit.     What  he  cannot  vivify  he  should  omit. 

Had  it  been  possible  to  rewrite  some  of  these  papers, 
I  hope  I  should  have  had  the  courage  to  attempt  it. 
But  it  is  not  possible.  Short  studies  are,  or  should 
be,  things  woven  like  a  carpet,  from  which  it  is  impos- 


12         PREFACE,  BY  WAY  OF  CRITICISM. 

sible  to  detach  a  strand.  What  is  perverted  has  its 
place  there  forever,  as  a  part  of  the  technical  means  by 
which  what  is  right  has  been  presented.  It  is  only 
possible  to  write  another  study,  and  then,  with  a  new 
**  point  of  view,"  would  follow  new  perversions  and 
perhaps  a  fresh  caricature.  Hence,  it  will  be,  at  least, 
honest  to  offer  a  few  grains  of  salt  to  be  taken  with  the 
text ;  and  as  some  words  of  apology,  addition,  cor- 
rection, or  amplifrcation  fall  to  be  said  on  almost  every 
study  in  the  volume,  it  will  be  most  simple  to  run 
them  over  in  their  order.  But  this  must  not  be  taken 
as  a  propitiatory  offering  to  the  gods  of  shipwreck  ;  I 
trust  my  cargo  unreservedly  to  the  chances  of  the  sea  ; 
and  do  not,  by  criticising  myself,  seek  to  disarm  the 
wrath  of  other  and  less  partial  critics. 

Hugo  s  Rojnances. — This  is  an  instance  of  the 
*' point  of  view."  The  five  romances  studied  with  a 
different  purpose  might  have  given  different  results, 
even  with  a  critic  so  warmly  interested  in  their  favor. 
The  great  contemporary  master  of  wordmanship,  and 
indeed  of  all  literary  arts  and  technicalities,  had  not 
unnaturally  dazzled  a  beginner.  But  it  is  best  to  dwell 
on  merits,  for  it  is  these  that  are  most  often  overlooked. 

Burns. — I  have  left  the  introductory  sentences  on 
Principal  Shairp,  partly  to  explain  my  own  paper, 
which  was  merely  supplemental  to  his  amiable  but  ini- 


PREFACE,  BY  WAY  OF  CRITICISM.  13 

perfect  book,  partly  because  that  book  appears  to  me 
truly  misleading  both  as  to  the  character  and  the  genius 
of  Burns.  This  seems  ungracious,  but  Mr.  Shairp 
has  himself  to  blame  ;  so  good  a  Wordsworthian  was 
out  of  character  upon  that  stage. 

This  half  apology  apart,  nothing  more  falls  to  be 
said  except  upon  a  remark  called  forth  by  my  study 
in  the  columns  of  a  literary  Review.  The  exact  terms 
in  which  that  sheet  disposed  of  Burns  I  cannot  now 
recall ;  but  they  were  to  this  effect — that  Burns  was  a 
bad  man,  the  impure  vehicle  of  fine  verses  ;  and  that 
this  was  the  view  to  which  all  criticism  tended.  Now 
I  knew,  for  my  own  part,  that  it  was  with  the  pro- 
foundest  pity,  but  with  a  growing  esteem,  that  I 
studied  the  man's  desperate  efforts  to  do  right ;  and 
the  more  I  reflected,  the  stranger  it  appeared  to  me 
that  any  thinking  being  should  feel  otherwise.  The 
complete  letters  shed,  indeed,  a  light  on  the  depths  to 
which  Burns  had  sunk  in  his  character  of  Don  Juan, 
but  they  enhance  in  the  same  proportion  the  hopeless 
nobility  of  his  marrying  Jean.  That  I  ought  to  have 
stated  this  more  noisily  I  now  see  ;  but  that  any  one 
should  fail  to  see  it  for  himself,  is  to  me  a  thing  both 
incomprehensible  and  worthy  of  open  scorn.  If 
Burns,  on  the  facts  dealt  with  in  this  study,  is  to  be 
called  a  bad  man,  I  question  very  much  whether  either 


14         PREFACE,  BY  WAY  OF  CRITICISM. 

I  or  the  writer  in  the  Review  have  ever  encountered 
what  it  would  be  fair  to  call  a  good  one.  All  have 
some  fault.  The  fault  of  each  grinds  down  the  hearts 
of  those  about  him,  and — let  us  not  blink  the  truth — 
hurries  both  him  and  them  into  the  grave.  And  when 
we  find  a  man  persevering  indeed,  in  his  fault,  as  all 
of  us  do,  and  openly  overtaken,  as  not  all  of  us  are, 
by  its  consequences,  to  gloss  the  matter  over,  with  too 
polite  biographers,  is  to  do  the  work  of  the  wrecker 
disfiguring  beacons  on  a  perilous  seaboard  ;  but  to 
call  him  bad,  with  a  self-righteous  chuckle,  is  to  be 
talking  in  one's  sleep  with  Heedless  and  Too-bold  in 
the  arbor. 

Yet  it  is  undeniable  that  much  anger  and  distress  is 
raised  in  many  quarters  by  the  least  attempt  to  state 
plainly,  what  every  one  well  knows,  of  Bums' s  profli- 
gacy, and  of  the  fatal  consequences  of  his  marriage. 
And  for  this  there  are  perhaps  two  subsidiary  rea- 
sons. For,  first,  there  is,  in  our  drunken  land,  a  cer- 
tain privilege  extended  to  drunkenness.  In  Scotland, 
in  particular,  it  is  almost  respectable,  above  all  when 
compared  with  any  "  irregularity  between  the  sexes." 
The  selfishness  of  the  one,  so  much  more  gross  in  es- 
sence, is  so  much  less  immediately  conspicuous  in  its 
results  that  our  demiurgeous  ]\Irs.  Grundy  smiles 
apologetically  on  its  victims.     It  is  often  said — I  have 


PREFACE,  BY  WAY  OF  CRITICISM.  15 

heard  it  with  these  ears— that  drunkenness  "  may  lead 
to  vice."  Now  I  did  not  think  it  at  all  proved  that 
Burns  was  what  is  called  a  drunkard  ;  and  I  was 
obliged  to  dwell  very  plainly  on  the  irregularity  and 
the  too  frequent  vanity  and  meanness  of  his  relations 
to  women.  Hence,  in  the  eyes  of  many,  my  study 
was  a  step  toward  the  demonstration  ot  Burns's  radical 
badness. 

But  second,  there  is  a  certain  class,  professors  of 
that  low  morality  so  greatly  more  distressing  than  the 
better  sort  of  vice,  to  whom  you  must  never  represent 
an  act  that  was  virtuous  in  itself,  as  attended  by  any 
other  consequences  than  a  large  family  and  fortune. 
To  hint  that  Burns's  marriage  had  an  evil  influence 
is,  with  this  class,  to  deny  the  moral  law.  Yet  such 
is  the  fact.  It  was  bravely  done  ;  but  he  had  pre- 
sumed too  far  on  his  strength.  One  after  another  the 
lights  of  his  life  went  out,  and  he  fell  from  circle  to 
circle  to  the  dishonored  sickbed  of  the  end.  And 
surely  for  any  one  that  has  a  thing  to  call  a  soul  he 
shines  out  tenfold  more  nobly  in  the  failure  of  that 
frantic  effort  to  do  right,  than  if  he  had  turned  on  his 
heel  with  Worldly  Wiseman,  married  a  congenial 
spouse,  and  lived  orderly  and  died  reputably  an  old 
man.  It  is  his  chief  title  that  he  refrained  from  "  the 
wrong  that    amendeth  wrong. ' '     But  the   common. 


l6  PREFACE,  BY  WAY  OF  CRITICISM. 

trashy  mind  of  our  generation  is  still  aghast,  like  the 
Jews  of  old,  at  any  word  of  an  unsuccessful  virtue. 
Job  has  been  written  and  read  ;  the  tower  of  Siloam 
fell  nineteen  hundred  years  ago  ;  yet  we  have  still  to 
desire  a  little  Christianity,  or,  failing  that,  a  little  even 
of  that  rude,  old,  Norse  nobility  of  soul,  which  saw 
virtue  and  vice  alike  go  unrewarded,  and  was  yet  not 
shaken  in  its  faith. 

Walt  Wliihiian.  — This  is  a  case  of  a  second  difficulty 
which  lies  continually  before  the  writer  of  critical 
studies  :  that  he  has  to  mediate  between  the  author 
whom  he  loves  and  the  public  who  are  certainly  in- 
different and  frequendy  averse.  Many  articles  had 
been  written  on  this  notable  man.  One  after  another 
had  leaned,  in  my  eyes,  either  to  praise  or  blame  un- 
duly. In  the  last  case,  they  helped  to  blindfold  our 
fastidious  public  to  an  inspiring  writer  ;  in  the  other, 
by  an  excess  of  unadulterated  praise,  they  moved  the 
more  candid  to  revolt.  I  was  here  on  the  horns  of  a 
dilemma  ;  and  between  these  horns  I  squeezed  myself 
with  perhaps  some  loss  to  the  substance  of  the  paper. 
Seeing  so  much  in  Whitman  that  was  merely  ridicu- 
lous, as  well  as  so  much  more  that  was  unsurpassed  in 
force  and  fitness, — seeing  the  true  prophet  doubled, 
as  I  thought,  in  places  with  the  Bull  in  a  China  Shop, 
— it  appeared   best  to  steer  a  middle  course,  and  to 


PREFACE,  BY  WAY  OF  CRITICISM.  17 

laugh  with  the  scorners  when  1  thought  they  had  any 
excuse,  while  I  made  haste  to  rejoice  with  the  rejoicers 
over  what  is  imperishably  good,  lovely,  human,  or 
divine,  in  his  extraordinary  poems.  That  was  perhaps 
the  right  road  ;  yet  I  cannot  help  feeling  that  in  this 
attempt  to  trim  my  sails  between  an  author  whom  I 
love  and  honor  and  a  public  too  averse  to  recognize 
his  merit,  I  have  been  led  into  a  tone  unbecoming 
from  one  of  my  stature  to  one  of  Whitman's.  But 
the  good  and  the  great  man  will  go  on  his  way  not 
vexed  with  my  little  shafts  of  merriment.  He,  first  of 
any  one,  will  understand  how,  in  the  attempt  to  ex- 
plain him  credibly  to  Mrs,  Grundy,  I  have  been  led 
into  certain  airs  of  the  man  of  the  world,  which  are 
merely  ridiculous  in  me,  and  were  not  intentionally 
discourteous  to  himself.  But  there  is  a  worse  side  to 
the  question  ;  for  in  my  eagerness  to  be  all  things  to 
all  men,  I  am  afraid  I  may  have  sinned  against  pro- 
portion. It  will  be  enough  to  say  here  that  Whit- 
man's faults  are  lew  and  unimportant  when  they  are 
set  beside  his  surprising  merits.  I  had  written  an- 
other paper  full  of  gratitude  for  the  help  that  had 
been  given  me  in  my  life,  full  of  enthusiasm  for  the 
intrinsic  merit  of  the  poems,  and  conceived  in  the 
noisiest  extreme  of  youthful  eloquence.  The  present 
study  was  a  rifacimento.      From   it,  with   the  design 


1 8         PREFACE,  BY  IV A  Y  OF  CRITICISM. 

already  mentioned,  and  in  a  fit  of  horror  at  my  old 
excess,  the  big  words  and  emphatic  passages  were 
ruthlessly  excised.  But  this  sort  of  prudence  is  fre- 
quently its  own  punishment  ;  along  with  the  exagger- 
ation, some  of  the  truth  is  sacrificed  ;  and  the  result 
is  cold,  constrained,  and  grudging.  In  short,  I  might 
almost  everywhere  have  spoken  more  strongly  than  I 
did. 

Thoreau. — Here  is  an  admirable  instance  of  the 
"  point  of  view ' '  forced  throughout,  and  of  too  earnest 
reflection  on  imperfect  facts.  Upon  me  this  pure, 
narrow,  sunnily-ascetic  Thoreau  had  exercised  a  great 
charm.  I  have  scarce  written  ten  sentences  since  1 
was  introduced  to  him,  but  his  influence  might  be 
somewhere  detected  by  a  close  observer.  Still  it  was 
as  a  writer  that  1  had  made  his  acquaintance  ;  I  took 
him  on  his  own  explicit  terms  ;  and  when  I  learned 
details  of  his  life,  they  were,  by  the  nature  of  the  case 
and  my  own  parti-pris,  read  even  with  a  certain  vio- 
lence in  terms  of  his  writings.  There  could  scarce  be 
a  perversion  more  justifiable  than  that ;  yet  it  was  still 
a  perversion.  The  study,  indeed,  raised  so  much  ire 
in  the  breast  of  Dr.  Japp  (H.  A.  Page),  Thoreau 's 
sincere  and  learned  disciple,  that  had  either  of  us  been 
men,  I  please  myself  with  thinking,  of  less  temper  and 
justice,  the  difference  might  have  made  us  enemies  in- 


PREFACE,  BY  WAY  OF  CRITICISM.  19 

Stead  of  making  us  friends.  To  him  who  knew  the 
man  from  the  inside,  many  of  my  statements  sounded 
like  inversions  made  on  purpose  ;  and  yet  when  we 
came  to  talk  of  them  together,  and  he  had  understood 
how  1  was  looking  at  the  man  through  the  books, 
while  he  had  long  since  learned  to  read  the  books 
through  the  man,  I  believe  he  understood  the  spirit  in 
which  I  had  been  led  astray. 

On  two  most  important  points,  Dr.  Japp  added  to 
my  knowledge,  and  with  the  same  blow  fairly  de- 
molished that  part  of  my  criticism.  First,  if  Thoreau 
were  content  to  dwell  by  Walden  Pond,  it  was  not 
merely  with  designs  of  self-improvement,  but  to  serve 
mankind  in  the  highest  sense.  Hither  came  the  flee- 
ing slave  ;  thence  was  he  despatched  along  the  road  to 
freedom.  That  shanty  in  the  woods  was  a  station  in 
the  great  Underground  Railroad  ;  that  adroit  and 
philosophic  solitary  was  an  ardent  worker,  soul  and 
body,  in  that  so  much  more  than  honorable  move- 
ment, which,  if  atonement  were  possible  for  nations, 
should  have  gone  far  to  wipe  away  the  guilt  of  slavery. 
But  in  history  sin  always  meets  with  condign  punish- 
ment ;  the  generation  passes,  the  offence  remains,  and 
the  innocent  must  suffer.  No  underground  railroad 
could  atone  for  slavery,  even  as  no  bills  in  Parlia- 
ment can  redeem  the  ancient  wrongs  of  Ireland.     But 


20         PREFACE,  BY  WAY  OF  CRITICISM. 

here   at   least  is   a   new    light  shed  on    the   Walden 
episode. 

Second,  it  appears,  and  the  point  is  capital,  that 
Thoreau  was  once  fairly  and  manfully  in  love,  and, 
with  perhaps  too  much  aping  of  the  angel,  relin- 
quished the  woman  to  his  brother.  Even  though  the 
brother  were  like  to  die  of  it,  we  have  not  yet  heard 
the  last  opinion  of  the  woman.  But  be  that  as  it  may, 
we  have  here  the  explanation  of  the  "  rarefied  and 
freezing  air"  in  which  I  complained  that  he  had  taught 
himself  to  breathe.  Reading  the  man  through  the 
books,  I  took  his  professions  in  good  faith.  He  made 
a  dupe  of  me,  even  as  he  was  seeking  to  make  a  dupe 
of  himself,  wresting  philosophy  to  the  needs  of  his  own 
sorrow.  But  in  the  light  of  this  new  fact,  those  pages, 
seemingly  so  cold,  are  seen  to  be  alive  with  feeling. 
What  appeared  to  be  a  lack  of  interest  in  the  philoso- 
pher turns  out  to  have  been  a  touching  insincerity  of 
the  man  to  his  own  heart ;  and  that  fine-spun  airy 
theory  of  friendship,  so  devoid,  as  I  complained,  of 
any  quality  of  flesh  and  blood,  a  mere  anodyne  to  lull 
his  pains.  The  most  temperate  of  living  critics  once 
marked  a  passage  of  my  own  with  a  cross  and  the 
words,  "  This  seems  nonsense.  "  It  not  only  seemed  ; 
it  was  so.  It  was  a  private  bravado  of  my  own,  which 
I  had  so  often   repeated  to  keep  up  my  spirits,  that  I 


PREFA  CE,  B  V  WA  V   OF  CRITICISM.  2 1 

had  grown  at  last  wholly  to  believe  it,  and  had  ended 
by  setting  it  down  as  a  contribution  to  the  theory  of 
life.  So  with  the  more  icy  parts  of  this  philosophy  of 
Thoreau's.  He  was  affecting  the  Sparlanism  he  had 
not ;  and  the  old  sentimental  wound  still  bled  afresh, 
while  he  deceived  himself  with  reasons. 

Thoreau's  theory,  in  short,  was  one  thing  and  him- 
self another  :  of  the  first,  the  reader  will  find  what  I 
believe  to  be  a  pretty  faithful  statement  and  a  fairly 
just  criticism  in  the  study  ;  of  the  second  he  will  find 
but  a  contorted  shadow.  So  much  of  the  man  as  fitted 
nicely  with  his  doctrines,  in  the  photographer's  phrase, 
came  out.  But  that  large  part  which  lay  outside  and 
beyond,  for  which  he  had  found  or  sought  no  formula, 
on  which  perhaps  his  philosophy  even  looked  askance, 
is  wanting  in  my  study,  as  it  was  wanting  in  the  guide 
I  followed.  In  some  ways  a  less  serious  writer,  in  all 
ways  a  nobler  man,  the  true  Thoreau  still  remains  to 
be  depicted. 

Villon. — I  am  tempted  to  regret  that  I  ever  wrote 
on  this  subject,  not  merely  because  the  paper  strikes 
me  as  too  picturesque  by  half,  but  because  I  regarded 
Villon  as  a  bad  fellow.  Others  still  think  well  of  him, 
and  can  find  beautiful  and  human  traits  where  I  saw 
nothing  but  artistic  evil  ;  and  by  the  principle  of  the 
art,  those  should  have  written  of  the  man,  and  not  I, 


22  PREFACE,  BY  WAY   OF  CRITICISM. 

Where  you  see  no  good,  silence  is  tiie  best.  Though 
this  penitence  comes  too  late,  it  may  be  well,  at  least, 
to  give  it  expression. 

The  spirit  of  Villon  is  still  living  in  the  literature  of 
France.  Fat  Peg  is  oddly  of  a  piece  with  the  work  of 
Zola,  the  Goncourts,  and  the  infinitely  greater  Flau- 
bert ;  and,  while  similar  in  ugliness,  still  surpasses 
them  in  native  power.  The  old  author,  breaking  with 
an  edai  de  voix,  out  of  his  tongue-tied  century,  has 
not  yet  been  touched  on  his  own  ground,  and  still 
gives  us  the  most  vivid  and  shocking  impression  of 
reality.  Even  if  that  were  not  worth  doing  at  all,  it 
would  be  worth  doing  as  well  as  he  has  done  it ;  for 
the  pleasure  we  take  in  the  author's  skill  repays  us,  or 
at  least  reconciles  us  to  the  baseness  of  his  attitude. 
Fat  Peg  {La  Grosse  3f argot)  is  typical  of  much  ;  it 
is  a  piece  of  experience  that  has  nowhere  else  been 
rendered  into  literature  ;  and  a  kind  of  gratitude  for 
the  author's  plainness  mingles,  as  we  read,  with  the 
nausea  proper  to  the  business.  I  shall  quote  here  a 
verse  of  an  old  students'  song,  worth  laying  side 
by  side  with  Villon's  startling  ballade.  This  singer, 
also,  had  an  unworthy  mistress,  but  he  did  not 
choose  to  share  the  wages  of  dishonor  ;  and  it  is 
thus,  with  both  wit  and  pathos,  that  he  laments  her 
fall  :— 


PREFACE,  BY  WAY  OF  CRITICISM.  23 

Nunc  plango  florem 

^tatis  tenerse 
Nitidiorem 

Veneris  sidere  : 
Tunc  columbinam 

Mentis  dulcedinem, 
Nunc  serpentinam 

Amaritudinem. 
Verbo  rogantes 

Removes  ostio, 
Munera  dantes 
Foves  cubiculo, 

IIlos  abire  prascipis 
A  quibus  nihil  accipis, 
Caecos  claudosque  recipis, 
Viros  illustres  decipis 
Cum  melle  venenosa.' 

But  our  illustrious  writer  of  ballades  it  was  unneces- 
sary to  deceive  ;  it  was  the  flight  of  beauty  alone,  not 
that  of  honesty  or  honor,  that  he  lamented  in  his 
song  ;  and  the  nameless  mediaeval  vagabond  has  the 
best  of  the  comparison. 

There  is  now  a  Villon  Society  in  England  ;  and 
Mr.  John  Payne  has  translated  him  entirely  into  Eng- 
lish, a  task  of  unusual  difficulty.  I  regret  to  find  that 
Mr.  Payne  and  I  are  not  always  at  one    as  to  the 

>  Gaudeamtis  :   Ca7-mina  vagoritni  selccta.     Leipsic.  Triibner.     187). 


24         PREFACE,  BY  WAY  OF  CRITICISM. 

author's  meaning  ;  in  such  cases  I  am  bound  to  sup- 
pose that  he  is  in  the  right,  although  the  weakness  of 
the  flesh  withholds  me  from  anything  beyond  a  formal 
submission.  He  is  now  upon  a  larger  venture,  prom- 
ising us  at  last  that  complete  Arabian  Nights  to  which 
we  have  all  so  long  looked  forward. 

Charles  of  Orleans.  — Perhaps  I  have  done  scanty 
justice  to  the  charm  of  the  old  Duke's  verses,  and 
certainly  he  is  too  much  treated  as  a  fool.  The  period 
is  not  sufficiently  remembered.  What  that  period 
was,  to  what  a  blank  of  imbecility  the  human  mind 
had  fallen,  can  only  be  known  to  those  who  have 
waded  in  the  chronicles.  Excepting  Comines  and  La 
Salle  and  Villon,  I  have  read  no  author  who  did  not 
appall  me  by  his  torpor  ;  and  even  the  trial  of  Joan  of 
Arc,  conducted  as  it  was  by  chosen  clerks,  bears  wit- 
ness to  a  dreary,  sterile  folly, — a  twilight  of  the  mind 
peopled  with  childish  phantoms.  In  relation  to  his 
contemporaries,  Charles  seems  quite  a  lively  character. 

It  remains  for  me  to  acknowledge  the  kindness  of 
Mr.  Henry  Pyne,  who,  immediately  on  the  appearance 
of  the  study,  sent  me  his  edition  of  the  Debate  between 
the  Heralds  :  a  courtesy  from  the  expert  to  the  ama- 
teur only  too  uncommon  in  these  days. 

Knox. — Knox,  the  second  in  order  of  interest  among 
the  reformers,  lies  dead  and  buried  in  the  works  of  the 


PREFACE,  BY  WAY  OF  CRITICISM.         25 

learned  and  unreadable  iNI'Crie.  It  remains  for  some 
one  to  break  the  tomb  and  bring  him  forth,  alive  again 
and  breathing,  in  a  human  book.  With  the  best  in- 
tentions in  the  world,  I  have  only  added  two  more 
flagstones,  ponderous  like  their  predecessors,  to  the 
mass  of  obstruction  that  buries  the  reformer  from  the 
world  ;  I  have  touched  him  in  my  turn  with  that 
"  mace  of  death,"  which  Carlyle  has  attributed  to 
Dryasdust  ;  and  my  two  dull  papers  are,  in  the  mat- 
ter of  dulness,  worthy  additions  to  the  labors  of 
M'Crie.  Yet  I  believe  they  are  worth  reprinting  in 
the  interest  of  the  next  biographer  of  Knox.  I  trust 
his  book  may  be  a  masterpiece  ;  and  I  indulge  the 
hope  that  my  two  studies  may  lend  him  a  hint  or  per- 
haps spare  him  a  delay  in  its  composition. 

Of  the  Pcpys  I  can  say  nothing  ;  for  it  has  been  too 
recently  through  my  hands  ;  and  I  still  retain  some  of 
the  heat  of  composition.  Yet  it  may  serve  as  a  text 
for  the  last  remark  I  have  to  offer.  To  Pepys  I  think 
I  have  been  amply  just ;  to  the  others,  to  Burns, 
Thoreau,  Whitman,  Charles  of  Orleans,  even  Villon, 
I  have  found  myself  in  the  retrospect  ever  too  grudg- 
ing of  praise,  ever  too  disrespectful  in  manner.  It  is 
not  easy  to  see  why  I  should  have  been  most  liberal  to 
the  man  of  least  pretensions.  Perhaps  some  coward- 
ice withheld  me  from  the  proper  warmth  of  tone  ;  per- 


26         PREFACE,  BY  WAY  OF  CRITICISM. 

haps  it  is  easier  to  be  just  to  those  nearer  us  in  rank 
of  mind.  Such  at  least  is  the  fact,  which  other  critics 
may  explain.  For  these  were  all  men  whom,  for  one 
reason  or  another,  I  loved  ;  or  when  I  did  not  love 
the  men,  my  love  was  the  greater  to  their  books. 
I  had  read  them  and  lived  with  them  ;  for  months  they 
were  continually  in  my  thoughts  ;  I  seemed  to  rejoice 
in  their  joys  and  to  sorrow  with  them  in  their  griefs  ; 
and  behold,  when  I  came  to  write  of  them,  my  tone 
was  sometimes  hardly  courteous  and  seldom  wholly 
just.  R.  L.  S. 


VICTOR    HUGO'S   ROMANCES. 

Apres  le  roman  pittoresque  mais  prosaique  de  Walter 
Scott  il  restera  un  autre  roman  a  creer,  plus  beau  et  plus 
complet  encore  selon  nous.  C'est  le  roman,  a  la  fois  drame 
et  6popee,  pittoresque  mais  poetique,  reel  mais  idfeal,  vrai 
mais  grand,  qui  enchassera  Walter  Scott  dans  Homere. — 
Victor  Hugo  on  Qiteiitin  DtirwaTd. 

Victor  Hugo's  romances  occupy  an  important  posi- 
tion in  tiie  history  of  literature  ;  many  innovations, 
timidly  made  elsewhere,  have  in  them  been  carried 
boldly  out  to  their  last  consequences  ;  much  that  was 
indefinite  in  literary  tendencies  has  attained  to  definite 
maturity  ;  many  things  have  come  to  a  point  and  been 
distinguished  one  from  the  other  ;  and  it  is  only  in 
the  last  romance  of  all,  Qiiatre  Vingt  Treize,  that  this 
culmination  is  most  perfect.  This  is  in  the  nature  of 
things.  Men  who  are  in  any  way  typical  of  a  stage  of 
progress  may  be  compared  more  justly  to  the  hand 
upon  the  dial  of  the  clock,  which  continues  to  advance 
as  it  indicates,  than  to  the  stationary  milestone,  which 
is  only  the  measure  of  what  is  past.  The  movement 
is  not  arrested.  That  significant  something  by  which 
the  work  of  such  a  man  differs  from  that  of  his  prede- 
cessors, goes  on  disengaging  itself  and  becoming  more 
and  more  articulate  and  cognizable.     The  same  princi- 


28  VICTOR  HUGO'S  ROMANCES. 

pie  of  growth  that  carried  his  first  book  beyond  the 
books  of  previous  writers,  carries  his  last  book  beyond 
his  first.  And  just  as  the  most  imbecile  production 
of  any  literary  age  gives  us  sometimes  the  very  clew  to 
comprehension  we  have  sought  long  and  vainly  in 
contemporary  masterpieces,  so  it  may  be  the  very  weak- 
est of  an  author's  books  that,  coming  in  the  sequel  of 
many  others,  enables  us  at  last  to  get  hold  of  what 
underlies  the  whole  of  them — of  that  spinal  marrow 
of  significance  that  unites  the  work  of  his  life  into 
something  organic  and  rational.  This  is  what  has 
been  done  by  Quatre  Vi7igt  Treize  for  the  earlier 
romances  of  Victor  Hugo,  and,  through  them,  for  a 
whole  division  of  modern  literature.  We  have  here 
the  legitimate  continuation  of  a  long  and  living  literary 
tradition  ;  and  hence,  so  far,  its  explanation.  When 
many  lines  diverge  from  each  other  in  direction  so 
slightly  as  to  confuse  the  eye,  we  know  that  we  have 
only  to  produce  them  to  make  the  chaos  plain  :  this 
is  continually  so  in  literary  history  ;  and  we  shall  best 
understand  the  importance  of  Victor  Hugo's  romances 
if  we  think  of  them  as  some  such  prolongation  of  one 
of  the  main  lines  of  literary  tendency. 

When  we  compare  the  novels  of  Walter  Scott  with 
those  of  the  man  of  genius  who  preceded  him,  and 
whom  he  delighted  to  honor  as  a  master  in  the  art — 
I  mean  Henry  Fielding — we  shall  be  somewhat  puz- 
zled, at  the  first  moment,  to  state  the  difference  that 
there   is  between  these  two.     Fielding  has  as  much 


VICTOR  HUGO'S  ROMANCES.  29 

human  science  ;  has  a  far  firmer  hold  upon  the  tiller 
of  his  story  ;  has  a  keen  sense  of  character,  which  he 
draws  (and  Scott  olten  does  so  too)  in  a  rather  abstract 
and  academical  manner  ;  and  finally,  is  quite  as 
humorous  and  quite  as  good-humored  as  the  great 
Scotchman,  With  all  these  points  of  resemblance  be- 
tween the  men,  it  is  astonishing  that  their  work  should 
be  so  different.  The  fact  is,  that  the  English  novel 
was  looking  one  way  and  seeking  one  set  of  effects  in 
the  hands  of  Fielding  ;  and  in  the  hands  of  Scott  it 
was  looking  eagerly  in  all  ways  and  searching  for  all 
the  effects  that  by  any  possibility  it  could  utilize.  The 
difference  between  these  two  men  marks  a  great  en- 
franchisement. With  Scott  the  Romantic  movement, 
the  movement  of  an  extended  curiosity  and  an  en- 
franchised imagination,  has  begun.  This  is  a  trite 
thing  to  say  ;  but  trite  things  are  often  very  indefinitely 
comprehended  :  and  this  enfranchisement,  in  as  far  as 
it  regards  the  technical  change  that  came  over  modern 
prose  romance,  has  never  perhaps  been  explained  with 
any  clearness. 

To  do  so,  it  will  be  necessary  roughly  to  compare 
the  two  sets  of  conventions  upon  which  plays  and  ro- 
mances are  respectively  based.  The  purposes  of  these 
two  arts  are  so  much  alike,  and  they  deal  so  much 
with  the  same  passions  and  interests,  that  we  are  apt 
to  forget  the  fundamental  opposition  of  their  methods. 
And  yet  such  a  fundamental  opposition  exists.  In 
the  drama  the  action  is  developed  in  great  measure  by 
means  of   things  that   remain  outside  of  the  art ;  by 


30  VICTOR  HUGO'S  ROMANCES. 

means  of  real  things,  that  is,  and  not  artistic  conven- 
tions for  things.  This  is  a  sort  of  reahsm  that  is  not 
to  be  confounded  with  that  reahsm  in  painting  of 
which  we  hear  so  much.  The  reahsm  in  painting  is 
a  thing  of  purposes  ;  this,  that  we  have  to  indicate  in 
the  drama,  is  an  affair  of  method.  We  have  heard  a 
story,  indeed,  of  a  painter  in  France  who,  when  he 
wanted  to  paint  a  sea-beach,  carried  reahsm  from  his 
ends  to  his  means,  and  plastered  real  sand  upon  his 
canvas  ;  and  that  is  precisely  what  is  done  in  the 
drama.  The  dramatic  author  has  to  paint  his  beaches 
with  real  sand  :  real  live  men  and  women  move  about 
the  stage  ;  we  hear  real  voices  ;  what  is  feigned  merely 
puts  a  sense  upon  what  is  ;  we  do  actually  see  a 
woman  go  behind  a  screen  as  Lady  Teazle,  and,  after 
a  certain  interval,  we  do  actually  see  her  very  shame- 
fully produced  again.  Now  all  these  things,  that  re- 
main as  they  were  in  life,  and  are  not  transmuted  into 
any  artistic  convention,  are  terribly  stubborn  and  diffi- 
cult to  deal  with  ;  and  hence  there  are  for  the  drama- 
tist many  resultant  limitations  in  time  and  space. 
These  limitations  in  some  sort  approximate  toward 
those  of  painting  :  the  dramatic  author  is  tied  down, 
not  indeed  to  a  moment,  but  to  the  duration  of  each 
scene  or  act  ;  he  is  confined  to  the  stage,  almost  as 
the  painter  is  confined  within  his  frame.  But  the 
great  restriction  is  this,  that  a  dramatic  author  must 
deal  with  his  actors,  and  with  his  actors  alone.  Cer- 
tain moments  of  suspense,  certain  significant  disposi- 
tions of  personages,  a  certain  logical  growth  of  emo- 


VICTOR  FIUGO' S  ROMANCES.  31 

tion,  these  are  the  only  means  at  the  disposal  of  the 
playwright.  It  is  true  that,  with  the  assistance  of  the 
scene-painter,  the  costumer  and  the  conductor  of  the 
orchestra,  he  may  add  to  this  something  of  pageant, 
something  of  sound  and  fury  ;  but  these  are,  for  the 
dramatic  writer,  beside  the  mark,  and  do  not  come 
under  the  vivifying  touch  of  his  genius.  When  we 
turn  to  romance,  we  find  this  no  longer.  Here  noth- 
ing is  reproduced  to  our  senses  directly.  Not  only 
the  main  conception  of  the  work,  but  the  scenery,  the 
appliances,  the  mechanism  by  which  this  conception 
is  brought  home  to  us,  have  been  put  through  the 
crucible  of  another  man's  mind,  and  come  out  again, 
one  and  all,  in  the  form  of  written  words.  With  the 
loss  of  every  degree  of  such  realism  as  we  have  de- 
scribed, there  is  for  art  a  clear  gain  of  liberty  and  large- 
ness of  competence.  Thus,  painting,  in  which  the 
round  outlines  of  things  are  thrown  on  to  a  flat  board, 
is  far  more  free  than  sculpture,  in  which  their  solidity 
is  preserved.  It  is  by  giving  up  these  identities  that 
art  gains  true  strength.  And  so  in  the  case  of  novels 
as  compared  with  the  stage.  Continuous  narration  is 
the  flat  board  on  to  which  the  novelist  throws  every- 
thing. And  from  this  there  results  for  him  a  great 
loss  of  vividness,  but  a  great  compensating  gain  in  his 
power  over  the  subject ;  so  that  he  can  now  subordi- 
nate one  thing  to  another  in  importance,  and  introduce 
all  manner  of  very  subtle  detail,  to  a  degree  that  was 
before  impossible.  He  can  render  just  as  easily  the 
flourish  of  trumpets  before  a  victorious  emperor  and 


32  VICTOR  HUGO'S  ROMANCES. 

the  gossip  of  country  market  women,  the  gradual  de- 
cay of  forty  years  of  a  man's  hfe  and  the  gesture  of  a 
passionate  moment.  He  finds  himself  equally  unable, 
if  he  looks  at  it  from  one  point  of  view — equally  able, 
if  he  looks  at  it  from  another  point  of  view — to  repro- 
duce a  color,  a  sound,  an  outline,  a  logical  argument, 
a  physical  action.  He  can  show  his  readers,  behind 
and  around  the  personages  that  for  the  moment  oc- 
cupy the  foreground  of  his  story,  the  continual  sugges- 
tion of  the  landscape  ;  the  turn  of  the  weather  that  will 
turn  with  it  men's  lives  and  fortunes,  dimly  fore- 
shadowed on  the  horizon  ;  the  fatality  of  distant 
events,  the  stream  of  national  tendency,  the  salient 
framework  of  causation.  And  all  this  thrown  upon 
the  flat  board  —  all  this  entering,  naturally  and 
smoothly,  into  the  texture  of  continuous  intelligent 
narration. 

This  touches  the  difference  between  Fielding  and 
Scott.  In  the  work  of  the  latter,  true  to  his  character 
of  a  modern  and  a  romantic,  we  become  suddenly  con- 
scious of  the  background.  Fielding,  on  the  other 
hand,  although  he  had  recognized  that  the  novel  was 
nothing  else  than  an  epic  in  prose,  wrote  in  the  spirit 
not  of  the  epic,  but  of  the  drama.  This  is  not,  of 
course,  to  say  that  the  drama  was  in  any  way  incapa^ 
ble  of  a  regeneration  similar  in  kind  to  that  of  which 
I  am  now  speaking  with  regard  to  the  novel.  The 
notorious  contrary  fact  is  sufficient  to  guard  the  reader 
against  such  a  misconstruction.  All  that  is  meant  is, 
that  Fielding  remained  ignorant  of  certain  capabilities 


VICTOR  HUGO'S  ROMANCES.  H 

■which  the  novel  possesses  over  the  drama  ;  or,  at  least, 
neglected  and  did  not  develop  them.  To  the  end  he 
continued  to  see  things  as  a  playwright  sees  them. 
The  world  with  which  he  dealt,  the  world  he  had 
realized  for  himself  and  sought  to  realize  and  set  before 
his  readers,  was  a  world  of  exclusively  human  interest. 
As  for  landscape,  he  was  content  to  underline  stage 
directions,  as  it  might  be  done  in  a  play-book  :  Tom 
and  Molly  retire  into  a  practicable  wood.  As  for  na- 
tionality and  public  sentiment,  it  is  curious  enough  to 
think  that  Tom  Jones  is  laid  in  the  year  forty-five,  and 
that  the  only  use  he  makes  of  the  rebellion  is  to  throw 
a  troop  of  soldiers  into  his  hero's  way.  It  is  most 
really  important,  however,  to  remark  the  change  which 
has  been  introduced  into  the  conception  of  character 
by  the  beginning  of  the  romantic  movement  and  the 
consequent  introduction  into  fiction  of  a  vast  amount 
of  new  material.  Fielding  tells  us  as  much  as  he 
thought  necessary  to  account  for  the  actions  of  his 
creatures  ;  he  thought  that  each  of  these  actions  could 
be  decomposed  on  the  spot  into  a  few  simple  personal 
elements,  as  we  decompose  a  force  in  a  question  of 
abstract  dynamics.  The  larger  motives  are  all  un- 
known to  him  ;  he  had  not  understood  that  the  nature 
of  the  landscape  or  the  spirit  of  the  times  could  be  for 
anything  in  a  story  ;  and  so,  naturally  and  rightly,  he 
said  nothing  about  them.  But  Scott's  instinct,  the 
instinct  of  the  man  of  an  age  profoundly  different, 
taught  him  otherwise  ;  and,  in  his  work,  the  individual 
characters  begin  to  occupy  a  comparatively  small  pro- 


34  VICTOR  HUGO'S  ROMAA'CES. 

portion  of  that  canvas  on  which  armies  manoeuvre,  and 
great  hills  pile  themselves  upon  each  other's  shoulders. 
Fielding's  characters  were  always  great  to  the  full 
stature  of  a  perfectly  arbitrary  will.  Already  in  Scott 
we  begin  to  have  a  sense  of  the  subtle  influences  that 
moderate  and  qualify  a  man's  personality  ;  that  per- 
sonality is  no  longer  thrown  out  in  unnatural  isolation, 
but  is  resumed  into  its  place  in  the  constitution  of 
things. 

It  is  this  change  in  the  manner  of  regarding  men 
and  their  actions  fiist  exhibited  in  romance,  that  has 
since  renewed  and  vivified  history.  For  art  precedes 
philosophy  and  even  science.  People  must  have 
noticed  things  and  interested  themselves  in  them  be- 
fore they  begin  to  debate  upon  their  causes  or  influ- 
ence. And  it  is  in  this  way  that  art  is  the  pioneer  of 
knowledge  ;  those  predilections  of  the  artist  he  knows 
not  why,  those  irrational  acceptations  and  recognitions, 
reclaim,  out  of  the  world  that  we  have  not  yet  realized, 
ever  another  and  another  corner  ;  and  after  the  facts 
have  been  thus  vividly  brought  before  us  and  have  had 
time  to  settle  and  arrange  themselves  in  our  minds, 
some  day  there  will  be  found  the  man  of  science  to 
stand  up  and  give  the  explanation.  Scott  took  an  in- 
terest in  many  things  in  which  Fielding  took  none  ; 
and  for  this  reason,  and  no  other,  he  introduced  them 
into  his  romances.  If  he  had  been  told  what  would 
be  the  nature  of  the  movement  that  he  was  so  lightly 
initiating,  he  would  have  been  very  incredulous  and 
not  a  little  scandalized.     At  the  time  when  he  wrote, 


VICTOR  HUGO'S  ROMANCES.  35 

the  real  drift  of  this  new  manner  of  pleasing  people  in 
fiction  was  not  yet  apparent ;  and,  even  now,  it  is  only 
by  looking  at  the  romances  of  Victor  Hugo  that  we 
are  enabled  to  form  any  proper  judgment  in  the  mat- 
ter. These  books  are  not  only  descended  by  ordinary 
generation  from  theWaverley  novels,  but  it  is  in  them 
chiefly  that  we  shall  find  the  revolutionary  tradition 
of  Scott  carried  farther  ;  that  we  shall  find  Scott  him- 
self, in  so  far  as  regards  his  conception  of  prose  fiction 
and  its  purposes,  surpassed  in  his  own  spirit,  instead 
of  tamely  followed.  We  have  here,  as  I  said  before, 
a  line  of  literary  tendency  produced,  and  by  this  pro- 
duction definitely  separated  from  others.  When  we 
come  to  Hugo,  we  see  that  the  deviation,  which  seemed 
slight  enough  and  not  very  serious  between  Scott  and 
Fielding,  is  indeed  such  a  great  gulf  in  thought  and 
sentiment  as  only  successive  generations  can  pass  over  : 
and  it  is  but  natural  that  one  of  the  chief  advances  that 
Hugo  has  made  upon  Scott  is  an  advance  in  self- 
consciousness.  Both  men  follow  the  same  road  ;  but 
where  the  one  went  blindly  and  carelessly,  the  other 
advances  with  all  deliberation  and  forethought.  There 
never  was  artist  much  more  unconscious  than  Scott ; 
and  there  have  been  not  many  more  conscious  than 
Hugo.  The  passage  at  the  head  of  these  pages  shows 
how  organically  he  had  understood  the  nature  of  his 
own  changes.  He  has,  underlying  each  of  the  five 
great  romances  (which  alone  I  purpose  here  to  ex- 
amine), two  deliberate  designs  :  one  artistic,  the  other 
consciously  ethical  and  intellectual.      This  is  a  man 


Z^  VICTOR  HUGO'S  ROMANCES. 

living  in  a  different  world  from  Scott,  who  professes 
sturdily  (in  one  of  his  introductions)  that  he  does  not 
believe  in  novels  having  any  moral  influence  at  all  ; 
but  still  Hugo  is  too  much  of  an  artist  to  let  himself 
be  hampered  by  his  dogmas  ;  and  the  truth  is  that  the 
artistic  result  seems,  in  at  least  one  great  instance,  to 
have  very  little  connection  with  the  other,  or  directly 
ethical  result. 

The  artistic  result  of  a  romance,  what  is  left  upon 
the  memory  by  any  really  powerful  and  artistic  novel, 
is  something  so  complicated  and  refined  that  it  is  diffi- 
cult to  put  a  name  upon  it ;  and  yet  something  as 
simple  as  nature.  These  two  propositions  may  seem 
mutually  destructive,  but  they  are  so  only  in  appear- 
ance. The  fact  is  that  art  is  working  far  ahead  of 
language  as  well  as  of  science,  realizing  for  us,  by  all 
manner  of  suggestions  and  exaggerations,  effects  for 
which  as  yet  we  have  no  direct  name  ;  nay,  for  which 
we  may  never  perhaps  have  a  direct  name,  for  the 
reason  that  these  effects  do  not  enter  very  largely  into 
the  necessities  of  life.  Hence  alone  is  that  suspicion 
of  vagueness  that  often  hangs  about  the  purpose  of  a 
romance  :  it  is  clear  enough  to  us  in  thought ;  but 
we  are  not  used  to  consider  anything  clear  until  we  are 
able  to  formulate  it  in  words,  and  analytical  language 
has  not  been  sufficiently  shaped  to  that  end.  We  all 
know  this  difficulty  in  the  case  of  a  picture,  simple 
and  strong  as  may  be  the  impression  that  it  has  left 
with  us  ;  and  it  is  only  because  language  is  the  medium 
of  romance,  that  we  are  prevented  from  seeing  that 


VICTOR  HUGO'S  ROMANCES.  37 

the  two  cases  are  the  same.  It  is  not  that  there  is 
anything  blurred  or  indefinite  in  the  impression  left 
with  us,  it  is  just  because  the  impression  is  so  very 
definite  after  its  own  kind,  that  we  find  it  hard  to  fit 
it  exactly  with  the  expressions  of  our  philosophical 
speech. 

It  is  this  idea  which  underlies  and  issues  from  a 
romance,  this  something  which  it  is  the  function  of 
that  form  of  art  to  create,  this  epical  value,  that  I  pro- 
pose chiefly  to  seek  and,  as  far  as  may  be,  to  throw 
into  relief,  in  the  present  study.  It  is  thus,  I  believe, 
that  we  shall  see  most  clearly  the  great  stride  that 
Hugo  has  taken  beyond  his  predecessors,  and  how,  no 
longer  content  with  expressing  more  or  less  abstract 
relations  of  man  to  man,  he  has  set  before  himself  the 
task  of  realizing,  in  the  language  of  romance,  much 
of  the  involution  of  our  complicated  lives. 

This  epical  value  is  not  to  be  found,  let  it  be  un- 
derstood, in  every  so-called  novel.  The  great  major- 
ity are  not  works  of  art  in  anything  but  a  very  second- 
ary signification.  One  might  almost  number  on  one's 
fingers  the  works  in  which  such  a  supreme  artistic  in- 
tention has  been  in  any  way  superior  to  the  other  and 
lesser  aims,  themselves  more  or  less  artistic,  that  gen- 
erally go  hand  in  hand  with  it  in  the  conception  of 
prose  romance.  The  purely  critical  spirit  is,  in  most 
novels,  paramount.  At  the  present  moment  we  can 
recall  one  man  only,  for  whose  works  it  would  have 
been  equally  possible  to  accomplish  our  present  de- 
sign :  and  that  man  is  Hawthorne.     There  is  a  unity, 


38  VICTOR  HUGO'S  ROMANCES. 

an  unwavering  creative  purpose,  about  some  at  least 
of  Hawthorne's  romances,  that  impresses  itself  on  the 
most  indifferent  reader  ;  and  the  very  restrictions  and 
weaknesses  of  the  man  served  perhaps  to  strengthen 
the  vivid  and  single  impression  of  his  works.  There 
is  nothing  of  this  kind  in  Hugo  :  unity,  if  he  attains 
to  it,  is  indeed  unity  out  of  multitude  ;  and  it  is  the 
wonderful  power  of  subordination  and  synthesis  thus 
displayed,  that  gives  us  the  measure  of  his  talent.  No 
amount  of  mere  discussion  and  statement,  such  as 
this,  could  give  a  just  conception  of  the  greatness  of 
this  power.  It  must  be  felt  in  the  books  themselves, 
and  all  that  can  be  done  in  the  present  essay  is  to  re- 
call to  the  reader  the  more  general  features  of  each  of 
the  five  great  romances,  hurriedly  and  imperfectly,  as 
space  will  permit,  and  rather  as  a  suggestion  than  any- 
thing more  complete. 

The  moral  end  that  the  author  had  before  him  in 
the  conception  of  Notre  Dame  de  -Paris  was  (he  tells 
us)  to  "denounce"  the  external  fatality  that  hangs 
over  men  in  the  form  of  foolish  and  inflexible  super- 
stition. To  speak  plainly,  this  moral  purpose  seems 
to  have  mighty  little  to  do  with  the  artistic  concep- 
tion ;  moreover  it  is  very  questionably  handled,  while 
the  artistic  conception  is  developed  with  the  most  con- 
summate success.  Old  Paris  lives  for  us  with  new- 
ness of  life  :  we  have  ever  before  our  eyes  the  city  cut 
into  three  by  the  two  arms  of  the  river,  the  boat-shaped 
island    "moored"   by  five   bridges   to   the   different 


VICTOR   HUGO'S  ROMANCES.  39 

shores,  and  the  two  unequal  towns  on  either  hand. 
We  forget  all  that  enumeration  of  palaces  and  churches 
and  convents  which  occupies  so  many  pages  of  admir- 
able description,  and  the  thoughtless  reader  might  be 
inclined  to  conclude  from  this,  that  they  were  pages 
thrown  away  ;  but  this  is  not  so  :  we  forget,  indeed, 
the  details,  as  we  forget  or  do  not  see  the  different 
layers  of  paint  on  a  completed  picture  ;  but  the  thing 
desired  has  been  accomplished,  and  we  carry  away  with 
us  a  sense  of  the  "  Gothic  profile"  of  the  city,  of  the 
"  surprising  forest  of  pinnacles  and  towers  and  bel- 
fries," and  we  know  not  what  of  rich  and  intricate  and 
quaint.  And  throughout,  Notre  Dame  has  been  held 
up  over  Paris  by  a  height  far  greater  than  that  of  its 
twin  towers  :  the  Cathedral  is  present  to  us  from  the 
first  page  to  the  last  ;  the  title  has  given  us  the  clew, 
and  already  in  the  Palace  of  Justice  the  story  begins 
to  attach  itself  to  that  central  building  by  character 
after  character.  It  is  purely  an  effect  of  mirage  ; 
Notre  Dame  does  not,  in  reality,  thus  dominate  and 
stand  out  above  the  city  ;  and  any  one  who  should 
visit  it,  in  the  spirit  of  the  Scott-tourists  to  Edinburgh 
or  the  Trossachs,  would  be  almost  offended  at  finding 
nothing  more  than  this  old  church  thrust  away  into  a 
corner.  It  is  purely  an  effect  of  mirage,  as  we  say  ; 
but  it  is  an  effect  that  permeates  and  possesses  the 
whole  book  with  astonishing  consistency  and  strength. 
And  then,  Hugo  has  peopled  this  Gothic  city,  and, 
above  all,  this  Gothic  church,  with  a  race  of  men  even 
more  distinctly  Gothic  than  their  surroundings.     We 


40  VICTOR  HUGO'S  ROMANCES. 

know  this  generation  already  :  we  have  seen  them 
clustered  about  the  worn  capitals  of  pillars,  or  craning 
forth  over  the  church-leads  with  the  open  mouths  of 
gargoyles.  About  them  all  there  is  that  sort  of  stiff 
quaint  unreality,  that  conjunction  of  the  grotesque, 
and  even  of  a  certain  bourgeois  snugness,  with  passion- 
ate contortion  and  horror,  that  is  so  characteristic  of 
Gothic  art.  Esmeralda  is  somewhat  an  exception  ; 
she  and  the  goat  traverse  the  story  like  two  children 
who  have  wandered  in  a  dream.  The  finest  moment 
of  the  book  is  when  these  two  share  with  the  two  other 
leading  characters,  Dom  Claude  and  Quasimodo,  the 
chill  shelter  of  the  old  cathedral.  It  is  here  that  we 
touch  most  intimately  the  generative  artistic  idea  of  the 
romance  :  are  they  not  all  four  taken  out  of  some 
quaint  moulding,  illustrative  of  the  Beatitudes,  or  the 
Ten  Commandments,  or  the  seven  deadly  sins  1 
What  is  Quasimodo  but  an  animated  gargoyle .? 
What  is  the  whole  book  but  the  reanimation  of  Gothic 
art.? 

It  is  curious  that  in  this,  the  earliest  of  the  five  great 
romances,  there  should  be  so  little  of  that  extrava- 
gance that  latterly  we  have  come  almost  to  identify 
with  the  author's  manner.  Yet  even  here  we  are  dis- 
tressed by  words,  thoughts,  and  incidents  that  defy 
belief  and  alienate  the  sympathies.  The  scene  of  the 
in  pace,  for  example,  in  spite  of  its  strength,  verges 
dangerously  on  the  province  of  the  penny  novelist.  I 
do  not  believe  that  Quasimodo  rode  upon  the  bell  ;  I 
should  as  soon  imagine  that  he  swung  by  the  clapper. 


VICTOR  HUGO'S  ROMANCES.  41 

And  again  the  following  two  sentences,  out  of  an  other- 
wise admirable  chapter,  surely  surpass  what  it  has  ever 
entered  into  the  heart  of  any  other  man  to  imagine 
(vol.  ii.  p.  180)  :  "  II  souffrait  tant  que  par  instants 
il  s'arrachait  des  poignees  de  chzvtws.,  pour  voir  s  Us 
ne  blanchissaient pas."  And,  p,  181  :  "  Ses  pensees 
etaient  si  insupportables  qu'il  prenait  sa  tete  a  deux 
mains  et  tachait  de  I'arracher  de  ses  epaules  pour  la 
h'iser  sur  le  pave. ' ' 

One  other  fault,  before  we  pass  on.  In  spite  of  the 
horror  and  misery  that  pervade  all  of  his  later  work, 
there  is  in  it  much  less  of  actual  melodrama  than  here, 
and  rarely,  I  should  say  never,  that  sort  of  brutality, 
that  useless  insufferable  violence  to  the  feelings,  which 
is  the  last  distinction  between  melodrama  and  true 
tragedy.  Now,  in  Av/re  Dame,  the  whole  story  of 
Esmeralda's  passion  for  the  worthless  archer  is  un- 
pleasant enough  ;  but  when  she  betrays  herself  in  her 
last  hiding-place,  herself  and  her  wretched  mother, 
by  calling  out  to  this  sordid  hero  who  has  long  since 
forgotten  her — well,  that  is  just  one  of  those  things 
that  readers  will  not  forgive  ;  they  do  not  like  it,  and 
they  are  quite  right  ;  life  is  hard  enough  for  poor  mor- 
tals, without  having  it  indefinitely  embittered  for  them 
by  bad  art. 

We  look  in  vain  for  any  similar  blemish  in  Zes 
Miserahles.  Here,  on  the  other  hand,  there  is  perhaps 
the  nearest  approach  to  literary  restraint  that  Hugo 
has  ever  made  :  there  is  here  certainly  the  ripest  and 


42  VICTOR  HUGO'S   ROMANCES. 

most  easy  development  of  his  powers.  It  is  the  moral 
intention  of  this  great  novel  to  awaken  us  a  little,  if  it 
may  be — for  such  awakenings  are  unpleasant — to  the 
great  cost  of  this  society  that  we  enjoy  and  profit  by, 
to  the  labor  and  sweat  of  those  who  support  the  litter, 
civilization,  in  which  we  ourselves  are  so  smoothly  car- 
ried for\vard.  People  are  all  glad  to  shut  their  eyes  ; 
and  it  gives  them  a  very  simple  pleasure  when  they 
can  forget  that  our  laws  commit  a  million  individual 
injustices,  to  be  once  roughly  just  in  the  general  ;  that 
the  bread  that  we  eat,  and  the  quiet  of  the  family,  and 
all  that  embellishes  life  and  makes  it  worth  having, 
have  to  be  purchased  by  death — by  the  deaths  of  ani- 
mals, and  the  deaths  of  men  wearied  out  with  labor, 
and  the  deaths  of  those  criminals  called  tyrants  and 
revolutionaries,  and  the  deaths  of  those  revolutionaries 
called  criminals.  It  is  to  something  of  all  this  that 
Victor  Hugo  wishes  to  open  men's  eyes  in  Les  Alise'ra- 
bles  ;  and  this  moral  lesson  is  worked  out  in  masterly 
coincidence  with  the  artistic  effect.  The  deadly 
weight  of  civilization  to  those  who  are  below  presses 
sensibly  on  our  shoulders  as  we  read.  A  sort  of 
mocking  indignation  grows  upon  us  as  we  find  Society 
rejecting,  again  and  again,  the  services  of  the  most  ser- 
viceable ;  setting  Jean  Valjean  to  pick  oakum,  casting 
Galileo  into  prison,  even  crucifying  Christ.  There  is 
a  haunting  and  horrible  sense  of  insecurity  about  the 
book.  The  terror  we  thus  feel  is  a  terror  for  the  ma- 
chinery of  law,  that  we  can  hear  tearing,  in  the  dark, 
good  and  bad  between  its  formidable  wheels  with  the 


VICTOR  HUGO'S  ROMANCES.  43 

iron  stolidity  of  all  machinery,  human  or  divine. 
This  terror  incarnates  itself  sometimes  and  leaps  hor- 
ribly out  upon  us  ;  as  when  the  crouching  mendicant 
looks  up,  and  Jean  Valjean,  in  the  light  of  the  street 
lamp,  recognizes  the  face  of  the  detective  ;  as  when 
the  lantern  of  the  patrol  flashes  suddenly  through  the 
darkness  of  the  sewer  ;  or  as  when  the  fugitive  comes 
forth  at  last  at  evening,  by  the  quiet  riverside,  and 
finds  the  police  there  also,  waiting  stolidly  for  vice  and 
stolidly  satisfied  to  take  virtue  instead.  The  whole 
book  is  full  of  oppression,  and  full  of  prejudice,  which 
is  the  great  cause  of  oppression.  We  have  the  preju- 
dices of  M.  Gillenormand,  the  prejudices  of  Marius, 
the  prejudices  in  revolt  that  defend  the  barricade,  and 
the  throned  prejudices  that  carry  it  by  storm.  And 
then  we  have  the  admirable  but  ill-written  character  of 
Javert,  the  man  who  had  made  a  religion  of  the  police, 
and  would  not  survive  the  moment  when  he  learned 
that  there  was  another  truth  outside  the  truth  of  laws  ; 
a  just  creation,  over  which  the  reader  will  do  well  to 
ponder. 

With  so  gloomy  a  design  this  great  work  is  still  full 
of  life  and  light  and  love.  The  portrait  of  the  good 
Bishop  is  one  of  the  most  agreeable  things  in  modern 
literature.  The  whole  scene  at  Montfermeil  is  full  of 
the  charm  that  Hugo  knows  so  well  how  to  throw 
about  children.  Who  can  forget  the  passage  wheie 
Cosette,  sent  out  at  night  to  draw  water,  stands  in  ad- 
miration before  the  illuminated  booth,  and  the  huck- 
ster behind  "  lui  faisait  un  pcu  I'effct  d'etre  le  Pere 


44  VICTOR  HUGO'S  ROMANCES. 

6temel  ?"  The  pathos  of  the  forlorn  sabot  laid  trust- 
ingly by  the  chimney  in  expectation  of  the  Santa  Claus 
that  was  not,  takes  us  fairly  by  the  throat  ;  there  is 
nothing  in  Shakespeare  that  touches  the  heart  more 
nearly.  The  loves  of  Cosetteand  Mariusare  very  pure 
and  pleasant,  and  we  cannot  refuse  our  affection  to 
Gavroche,  although  we  may  make  a  mental  reserva- 
tion of  our  profound  disbelief  in  his  existence.  Take 
it  for  all  in  all,  there  are  few  books  in  the  world  that 
can  be  compared  with  it.  There  is  as  much  calm  and 
serenity  as  Hugo  has  ever  attained  to  ;  the  melo- 
dramatic coarsenesses  that  disfigured  Xoire  Dame  are  no 
longer  present.  There  is  certainly  much  that  is  pain- 
fully improbable  ;  and  again,  the  story  itself  is  a  little 
too  well  constructed  ;  it  produces  on  us  the  effect  of  a 
puzzle,  and  we  grow  incredulous  as  we  find  that  every 
character  fits  again  and  again  into  tb;  plot,  and  is,  like 
the  child's  cube,  serviceable  on  six  faces  ;  things  are 
not  so  well  arranged  in  life  as  all  that  comes  to. 
Some  of  the  digressions,  also,  seem  out  of  place,  and 
do  nothing  but  interrupt  and  irritate.  But  when  all 
is  said,  the  book  remains  of  masterly  conception  and 
of  masterly  development,  full  of  pathos,  full  of  truth, 
full  of  a  high  eloquence. 

Superstition  and  social  exigency  having  been  thus 
dealt  with  in  the  first  two  members  of  the  series,  it  re- 
mained for  Les  Travailleurs  de  la  Mcr  to  show  man 
hand  to  hand  with  the  elements,  the  last  form  of  ex- 
ternal force  that  is  brought  against  him.     And  here 


VICTOR  HUGO'S  ROMANCES.  45 

once  more  the  artistic  effect  and  the  moral  lesson  are 
worked  out  together,  and  are,  indeed,  one.  Gilliat, 
alone  upon  the  reef  at  his  herculean  task,  offers  a 
type  of  human  industry  in  the  midst  of  the  vague 
"  diffusion  of  forces  into  the  illimitable,"  and  the  vis- 
ionary development  of  "  wasted  labor"  in  the  sea, 
and  the  winds,  and  the  clouds.  No  character  was 
ever  thrown  into  such  strange  relief  as  Gilliat.  The 
great  circle  of  sea-birds  that  come  wonderingly  around 
him  on  the  night  of  his  arrival,  strikes  at  once  the  note 
of  his  pre-eminence  and  isolation.  He  fills  the  whole 
reef  with  his  indefatigable  toil  ;  this  solitary  spot  in  the 
ocean  rings  with  the  clamor  of  his  anvil ;  we  see  him 
as  he  comes  and  goes,  thrown  out  sharply  against  the 
clear  background  of  the  sea.  And  yet  his  isolation  is 
not  to  be  compared  with  the  isolation  of  Robinson 
Crusoe,  for  example  ;  indeed,  no  two  books  could  be 
more  instructive  to  set  side  by  side  than  Les  Travail- 
leurs  and  this  other  of  the  old  days  before  art  had 
learned  to  occupy  itself  with  what  lies  outside  of  human 
will.  Crusoe  was  one  sole  centre  of  interest  in  the 
midst  of  a  nature  utterly  dead  and  utterly  unrealized 
by  the  artist ;  but  this  is  not  how  we  feel  with  GilHat  ; 
we  feel  that  he  is  opposed  by  a  "dark  coalition  of 
forces,"  that  an  "immense  animosity"  surrounds 
him  ;  we  are  the  witnesses  of  the  terrible  warfare  that 
he  wages  with  "  the  silent  inclemency  of  phenomena 
going  their  own  way,  and  the  great  general  law,  im- 
placable and  passive  :"  "a  conspiracy  of  the  indiffer- 
ency  of  things"  is  against  him.     There  is  not  one  in- 


46  VICTOR  HUGO'S  ROMANCES. 

terest  on  the  reef,  but  two.  Just  as  we  recognize 
Gilliat  for  the  hero,  we  recognize,  as  implied  by  this 
indifferency  of  things,  this  direction  of  forces  to  some 
purpose  outside  our  purposes,  yet  another  character 
who  may  almost  take  rank  as  the  villain  of  the  novel, 
and  the  two  face  up  to  one  another  blow  for  blow, 
feint  for  feint,  until,  in  the  storm,  they  fight  itepically 
out,  and  Gilliat  remains  the  victor  ; — a  victor,  how- 
ever, who  has  still  to  encounter  the  octopus.  I  need 
say  nothing  of  the  grewsome,  repulsive  excellence  of 
that  famous  scene  ;  it  will  be  enough  to  remind  the 
reader  that  Gilliat  is  in  pursuit  of  a  crab  when  he  is 
himself  assaulted  by  the  devil  fish,  and  that  this,  in 
its  way,  is  the  last  touch  to  the  inner  significance  of 
the  book  ;  here,  indeed,  is  the  true  position  of  man 
in  the  universe. 

But  in  Les  Travailletirs,  with  all  its  strength,  with 
all  its  eloquence,  with  all  the  beauty  and  fitness  of  its 
main  situations,  we  cannot  conceal  from  ourselves  that 
there  is  a  thread  of  something  that  will  not  bear  calm 
scrutiny.  There  is  much  that  is  disquieting  about  the 
storm,  admirably  as  it  begins.  I  am  very  doubtful 
whether  it  would  be  possible  to  keep  the  boat  from 
foundering  in  such  circumstances,  by  any  amount  of 
breakwater  and  broken  rock.  I  do  not  understand 
the  way  in  which  the  waves  are  spoken  of,  and  prefer 
just  to  take  it  as  a  loose  way  of  speaking,  and  pass  on. 
And  lastly,  how  does  it  happen  that  the  sea  was  quite 
calm  next  day  ?  Is  this  great  hurricane  a  piece  of 
scene-painting  after  all  ?     And  when  we  have  forgiven 


VICTOR  HUGO'S  ROMANCE S.  47 

Gilliat's  prodigies  of  strength  (although,  in  soberness, 
he  reminds  us  more  of  Porthos  in  the  Vicomte  de 
Bragelonne  than  is  quite  desirable),  what  is  to  be  said 
to  his  suicide,  and  how  are  we  to  condemn  in  ade- 
quate terms  that  unprincipled  avidity  after  effect,  which 
tells  us  that  the  sloop  disappeared  over  the  horizon, 
and  the  head  under  the  water,  at  one  and  the  same 
moment  ?  Monsieur  Hugo  may  say  what  he  will,  but 
we  know  better  ;  we  know  very  well  that  they  did  not ; 
a  thing  like  that  raises  up  a  despairing  spirit  of  oppo- 
sition in  a  man's  readers  ;  they  give  him  the  lie  fierce- 
ly, as  they  read.  Lastly,  we  have  here  already  sonie 
beginning  of  that  curious  series  of  English  blunders, 
that  makes  us  wonder  if  there  are  neither  proof  sheets 
nor  judicious  friends  in  the  whole  of  France,  and  affects 
us  sometimes  with  a  sickening  uneasiness  as  to  what 
may  be  our  own  exploits  when  we  touch  upon  foreign 
countries  and  foreign  tongues.  It  is  here  that  we 
shall  find  the  famous  "  first  of  the  fourth,"  and  many 
English  w'ords  that  may  be  comprehensible  perhaps  in 
Paris.  It  is  here  that  we  learn  that  "  laird  "  in  Scot- 
land is  the  same  title  as  "  lord  "  in  England.  Here, 
also,  is  an  account  of  a  Highland  soldier's  equipment, 
which  we  recommend  to  the  lovers  of  genuine  fun. 

In  L' Homme  qui  Rit,  it  was  Hugo's  object  to  "  de- 
nounce" (as  he  would  say  himself)  the  aristocratic 
principle  as  it  was  exhibited  in  England  ;  and  this 
purpose,  somewhat  more  unmitigatedly  satiric  than 
that  of   the  two  last,  must  answer  for  much  that  is  un- 


48  VICTOR  HUGO'S  ROMANCES. 

pleasant  in  the  book.  The  repulsiveness  of  the  scheme 
of  the  story,  and  the  manner  in  which  it  is  bound  up 
with  impossibihties  and  absurdities,  discourage  the 
reader  at  the  outset,  and  it  needs  an  effort  to  take  it 
as  seriously  as  it  deserves.  And  yet  when  we  judge  it 
deliberately,  it  will  be  seen  that,  here  again,  the  story 
is  admirably  adapted  to  the  moral.  The  constructive 
ingenuity  exhibited  throughout  is  almost  morbid. 
Nothing  could  be  more  happily  imagined,  as  a  reductio 
ad  absurdum  of  the  aristocratic  principle,  than  the  ad- 
ventures of  Gwynplaine,  the  itinerant  mountebank, 
snatched  suddenly  out  of  his  little  way  of  life,  and  in- 
stalled without  preparation  as  one  of  the  hereditary  leg- 
islators of  a  great  country.  It  is  with  a  very  bitter 
irony  that  the  paper,  on  which  all  this  depends,  is  left 
to  float  for  years  at  the  will  of  wind  and  tide.  What, 
again,  can  be  finer  in  conception  than  that  voice  from 
the  people  heard  suddenly  in  the  House  of  Lords,  in 
solemn  arraignment  of  the  pleasures  and  privileges  of 
its  splendid  occupants  .?  The  horrible  laughter,  stamped 
forever  "  by  order  of  the  king"  upon  the  face  of  this 
strange  spokesman  of  democracy,  adds  yet  another 
feature  of  justice  to  the  scene  ;  in  all  time,  travesty 
has  been  the  argument  of  oppression  ;  and,  in  all  time, 
the  oppressed  might  have  made  this  answer  :  "  If  I 
am  vile,  is  it  not  your  system  that  has  made  me  so .?" 
This  ghastly  laughter  gives  occasion,  moreover,  for  the 
one  strain  of  tenderness  running  through  the  web  of 
this  unpleasant  story  :  the  love  of  the  blind  girl  Dea 
for  the  monster.      It  is  a  most  benignant  providence 


VICTOR  HUGO'S  ROMANCES.  49 

that  thus  harmoniously  brings  together  these  two  mis- 
fortunes ;  it  is  one  of  those  compensations,  one  of 
those  afterthoughts  of  a  relenting  destiny,  that  recon- 
cile us  from  time  to  time  to  the  evil  that  is  in 
the  world  ;  the  atmosphere  of  the  book  is  purified 
by  the  presence  of  this  pathetic  love  ;  it  seems  to 
be  above  the  story  somehow,  and  not  of  it,  as  the 
full  moon  over  the  night  of  some  foul  and  feverish 
city. 

There  is  here  a  quality  in  the  narration  more  inti- 
mate and  particular  than  is  general  with  Hugo  ;  but 
it  must  be  owned,  on  the  other  hand,  that  the  book 
is  wordy,  and  even,  now  and  then,  a  little  wearisome. 
Ursus  and  his  wolf  are  pleasant  enough  companions  ; 
but  the  former  is  nearly  as  much  an  abstract  type  as 
the  latter.  There  is  a  beginning,  also,  of  an  abuse  of 
conventional  conversation,  such  as  may  be  quite  par- 
donable in  the  drama  where  needs  must,  but  is  with- 
out excuse  in  the  romance.  Lastly,  I  suppose  one 
must  say  a  word  or  two  about  the  weak  points  of  this 
not  immaculate  novel  ;  and  if  so,  it  will  be  best  to 
distinguish  at  once.  The  large  family  of  English 
blunders,  to  which  we  have  alluded  already  in  speak- 
ing of  Les  Travailleurs,  are  of  a  sort  that  is  really  in- 
different in  art.  If  Shakespeare  makes  his  ships  cast 
anchor  by  some  seaport  of  Bohemia,  if  Hugo  imagines 
Tom-Tim-Jack  to  be  a  likely  nickname  for  an  English 
sailor,  or  if  either  Shakespeare,  or  Hugo,  or  Scott, 
for  that  matter,  be  guilty  of  "  figments  enough  to  con- 
fuse the    march  of   a  whole   history  —  anachronisms 


5©  VICTOR  HUGO'S  ROMANCES. 

enough  to  overset  all  chronology,"  ^  the  life  of  their 
creations,  the  artistic  truth  and  accuracy  of  their  work, 
is  not  so  much  as  compromised.  But  when  we  come 
upon  a  passage  like  the  sinking  of  the  "  Ourque"  in 
this  romance,  we  can  do  nothing  but  cover  our  face 
with  our  hands  :  the  conscientious  reader  feels  a  sort 
of  disgrace  in  the  very  reading.  For  such  artistic  false- 
hoods, springing  from  what  I  have  called  already  an 
unprincipled  avidity  alter  effect,  no  amount  of  blame 
can  be  exaggerated  ;  and  above  all,  when  the  criminal 
is  such  a  man  as  Victor  Hugo.  We  cannot  forgive  in 
him  what  we  might  have  passed  over  in  a  third-rate 
sensation  novelist.  Little  as  he  seems  to  know  of  the 
sea  and  nautical  affairs,  he  must  have  known  very 
well  that  vessels  do  not  go  down  as  he  makes  the 
"  Ourque"  go  down  ;  he  must  have  known  that  such 
a  liberty  with  fact  was  against  the  laws  of  the  game, 
and  incompatible  with  all  appearance  of  sincerity  in 
conception  or  workmanship. 

In  each  of  these  books,  one  after  another,  there  has 
been  some  departure  from  the  traditional  canons  of 
romance  ;  but  takmg  each  separately,  one  would  have 
feared  to  make  too  much  of  these  departures,  or  to 
found  any  theory  upon  what  was  perhaps  purely  acci- 
dental. The  appearance  of  Quatre  Vingt  Treize  has 
put  us  out  of  the  region  of  such  doubt.  Like  a  doc- 
tor who  has  long  been  hesitating  how  to  classify  an 

^  Prefatory  letter  to  Pevcril  of  the  Peak- 


VICTOR  HUGO'S  ROMANCES.  51 

epidemic  malady,  we  have  come  at  last  upon  a  case  so 
well  marked  that  our  uncertainty  is  at  an  end.  It  is 
a  novel  built  upon  "  a  sort  of  enigma,"  which  was  at 
that  date  laid  before  revolutionary  France,  and  which 
is  presented  by  Hugo  to  Tellmarch,  to  Lantenac,  to 
Gauvain,  and  very  terribly  to  Cimourdain,  each  of 
whom  gives  his  own  solution  of  the  question,  clement 
or  stern,  according  to  the  temper  of  his  spirit.  That 
enigma  was  this  :  "  Can  a  good  action  be  a  bad  ac- 
tion .?  Does  not  he  who  spares  the  wolf  kill  the 
sheep  ?"  This  question,  as  I  say,  meets  with  one  an- 
swer after  another  during  the  course  of  the  book,  and 
yet  seems  to  remain  undecided  to  the  end.  And 
something  in  the  same  way,  although  one  character, 
or  one  set  of  characters,  after  another  comes  to  the 
front  and  occupies  our  attention  for  the  moment,  we 
never  identify  our  interest  with  any  of  these  temporary 
heroes  nor  regret  them  after  they  are  withdrawn.  We 
soon  come  to  regard  them  somewhat  as  special  cases 
of  a  general  law  ;  what  we  really  care  for  is  something 
that  they  only  imply  and  body  forth  to  us.  We  know 
how  history  continues  through  century  after  century  ; 
how  this  king  or  that  patriot  disappears  from  its  pages 
with  his  whole  generation,  and  yet  we  do  not  cease  to 
read,  nor  do  we  even  feel  as  if  we  had  reached  any 
legitimate  conclusion,  because  our  interest  is  not  in 
the  men,  but  in  the  country  that  they  loved  or  hated, 
benefited  or  injured.  And  so  it  is  here  ;  Gauvain  and 
Cimourdain  pass  away,  and  we  regard  them  no  more 
than  the  lost  armies  of  which  we  find  the  cold  statistics 


52  VICTOR  HUGO'S  ROMANCES. 

in  military  annals  ;  what  we  regard  is  what  remains 
behind  ;  it  is  the  principle  that  put  these  men  where 
ihey  were,  that  filled  them  for  a  while  with  heroic  in- 
spiration, and  has  the  power,  now  that  they  are  fallen, 
to  inspire  others  with  the  same  courage.  The  interest 
of  the  novel  centres  about  revolutionary  France  :  just 
as  the  plot  is  an  abstract  judicial  difficulty,  the  hero  is 
an  abstract  historical  force.  And  this  has  been  done, 
not,  as  it  would  have  been  before,  by  the  cold  and 
cumbersome  machinery  of  allegory,  but  with  bold, 
straightforward  realism,  dealing  only  with  the  objective 
materials  of  art,  and  dealmg  with  them  so  master- 
fully that  the  palest  abstractions  of  thought  come 
before  us,  and  move  our  hopes  and  fears,  as  if 
they  were  the  young  men  and  maidens  of  customary 
romance. 

The  episode  of  the  mother  and  children  in  Qiiatre 
Vingt  Treize  is  equal  to  anything  that  Hugo  has  ever 
written.  There  is  one  chapter  in  the  second  volume, 
for  instance,  called  ''  Sein  gueri,  coeur  saignanl,''  that 
is  full  of  the  very  stuff  of  true  tragedy,  and  nothing 
could  be  more  delightful  than  the  humors  of  the  three 
children  on  the  day  before  the  assault.  The  passage 
on  La  Vendee  is  really  great,  and  the  scenes  in  Paris 
have  much  of  the  same  broad  merit.  The  book  is 
full,  as  usual,  of  pregnant  and  splendid  sayings.  But 
when  thus  much  is  conceded  by  way  of  praise,  we 
come  to  the  other  scale  of  the  balance,  and  find  this, 
also,  somewhat  heavy.  There  is  here  a  yet  greater 
over  employment  of    conventional   dialogue   than  in 


VICTOR  HUGO'S  ROMANCES.  53 

L'  Homme  qui  Rit ;  and  much  that  should  have  been 
said  by  the  author  himself,  if  it  were  to  be  said  at  all, 
he  has  most  unwarrantably  put  into  the  mouths  of  one 
or  other  of  his  characters.  We  should  like  to  know 
what  becomes  of  the  main  body  of  the  troop  in  the 
wood  of  La  Saudraie  during  the  thirty  pages  or  so  in 
which  the  foreguard  lays  aside  all  discipline,  and  stops 
to  gossip  over  a  woman  and  some  children.  We  have 
an  unpleasant  idea  forced  upon  us  at  one  place,  in 
spite  of  all  the  good-natured  incredulity  that  we  can 
summon  up  to  resist  it.  Is  it  possible  that  Monsieur 
Hugo  thinks  they  ceased  to  steer  the  corvette  while  the 
gun  was  loose }  Of  the  chapter  in  which  Lantenac 
and  Halmalho  are  alone  together  in  the  boat,  the  less 
said  the  better  ;  of  course,  if  there  were  nothing  else, 
they  would  have  been  swamped  thirty  times  over  dur- 
ing the  course  of  Lantenac' s  harangue.  Again,  after 
Lantenac  has  landed,  we  have  scenes  of  almost  inim- 
itable workmanship  that  suggest  the  epithet  "  statu- 
esque" by  their  clear  and  trenchant  outline  ;  but  the 
tocsin  scene  will  not  do,  and  the  tocsin  unfortunately 
pervades  the  whole  passage,  ringing  continually  in 
our  ears  with  a  taunting  accusation  of  falsehood.  And 
then,  when  we  come  to  the  place  where  Lantenac 
meets  the  royalists,  under  the  idea  that  he  is  going  to 
meet  the  republicans,  it  seems  as  if  there  were  a  hitch 
in  the  stage  mechanism.  I  have  tried  it  over  in  every 
way,  and  I  cannot  conceive  any  disposition  that  would 
make  the  scene  possible  as  narrated. 


54  VICTOR  HUGO'S  ROMANCES. 

Such  then,  with  their  faults  and  their  signai  excel- 
lences, are  the  five  great  novels. 

Romance  is  a  language  in  which  many  persons 
learn  to  speak  with  a  certain  appearance  of  fluency  ; 
but  there  are  few  who  can  ever  bend  it  to  any  practi- 
cal need,  few  who  can  ever  be  said  to  express  them- 
selves in  it.  It  has  become  abundantly  plain  in  the 
foregoing  examination  that  Victor  Hugo  occupies  a 
high  place  among  those  few.  He  has  always  a  perfect 
command  over  his  stories  ;  and  we  see  that  they  are 
constructed  with  a  high  regard  to  some  ulterior  pur- 
pose, and  that  every  situation  is  informed  with  moral 
significance  and  grandeur.  Of  no  other  man  can  the 
same  thing  be  said  in  the  same  degree.  His  romances 
are  not  to  be  confused  with  "  the  novel  with  a  pur- 
pose" as  familiar  to  the  English  reader  :  this  is  gen- 
erally the  model  of  incompetence  ;  and  we  see  the 
moral  clumsily  forced  into  every  hole  and  corner  of 
the  story,  or  thrown  externally  over  it  like  a  carpet 
over  a  railing.  Now  the  moral  significance,  with 
Hugo,  is  of  the  essence  of  the  romance  ;  it  is  the  or- 
ganizing principle.  If  you  could  somehow  despoil 
Les  Mis'erabhs  or  Les  Travailleurs  of  their  distinctive 
lesson,  you  would  find  that  the  story  had  lost  its  in- 
terest and  the  book  was  dead. 

Having  thus  learned  to  subordinate  his  story  to  an 
idea,  to  make  his  art  speak,  he  went  on  to  teach  it  to 
say  things  heretofore  unaccustomed.  If  you  look  back 
at  the  five  books  of  which  we  have  now  so  hastily 
spoken,  you  will  be  astonished  at  the  freedom  with 


VICTOR  HUGO'S  ROMANCES.  55 

which  the  original  purposes  of  story- telling  have  been 
laid  aside  and  passed  by.  Where  are  now  the  two 
lovers  who  descended  the  main  watershed  of  all  the 
Waverley  novels,  and  all  the  novels  that  have  tried  to 
follow  in  their  wake  ?  Sometimes  they  are  almost 
lost  sight  of  before  the  solemn  isolation  of  a  man 
against  the  sea  and  sky,  as  in  Les  Travailleiirs  j  some- 
times, as  in  Les  Miserables,  they  merely  figure  for 
awhile,  as  a  beautiful  episode  in  the  epic  of  oppression  ; 
sometimes  they  are  entirely  absent,  as  in  Quatre  Vingt 
Treize.  There  is  no  hero  in  Noire  Dame  :  in  Les 
Miserables  it  is  an  old  man  :  in  L' Homme  qui  Rit  it 
is  a  monster  :  in  Quaire  Vingt  Treize  it  is  the  Revo- 
lution. Those  elements  that  only  began  to  show 
themselves  timidly,  as  adjuncts,  in  the  novels  of  Wal- 
ter Scott,  have  usurped  ever  more  and  more  of  the 
canvas  ;  until  we  find  the  whole  interest  of  one  of 
Hugo's  romances  centring  around  matter  that  Field- 
ing would  have  banished  from  his  altogether,  as  being 
out  of  the  field  of  fiction.  So  we  have  elemental 
forces  occupying  nearly  as  large  a  place,  playing  (so 
to  speak)  nearly  as  important  a  role,  as  the  man,  Gil- 
liat,  who  opposes  and  overcomes  them.  So  we  find 
the  fortunes  of  a  nation  put  upon  the  stage  with  as 
much  vividness  as  ever  before  the  fortunes  of  a  village 
maiden  or  a  lost  heir  ;  and  the  forces  that  oppose  and 
corrupt  a  principle  holdmg  the  attention  quite  as 
strongly  as  the  wicked  barons  or  dishonest  attorneys 
of  the  past.  Hence  those  individual  interests  that 
were  supreme  in  Fielding,  and  even  in  Scott,  stood 


56  VICTOR  HUGO'S  ROMANCES. 

out  over  everything  else  and  formed  as  it  were  the 
spine  of  the  stor}^,  figure  here  only  as  one  set  of  in- 
terests among  many  sets,  one  force  among  many 
forces,  one  thing  to  be  treated  out  of  a  whole  world  of 
things  equally  vivid  and  important.  So  that,  for 
Hugo,  man  is  no  longer  an  isolated  spirit  without  an- 
tecedent or  relation  here  below,  but  a  being  involved 
in  the  action  and  reaction  of  natural  forces,  himself  a 
centre  of  such  action  and  reaction  ;  or  an  unit  in  a 
great  multitude,  chased  hither  and  thither  by  epi- 
demic terrors  and  aspirations,  and,  in  all  seriousness, 
blown  about  by  every  wind  of  doctrine.  This  is  a 
long  way  that  we  have  travelled  :  between  such  work 
and  the  work  of  Fielding  is  there  not,  indeed,  a  great 
gulf  in  thought  and  sentiment } 

Art,  thus  conceived,  realizes  for  men  a  larger  por- 
tion of  life,  and  that  portion  one  that  it  is  more  diffi- 
cult for  them  to  realize  unaided  ;  and,  besides  help- 
ing them  to  feel  more  intensely  those  restricted 
personal  interests  which  are  patent  to  all,  it  awakes  in 
them  some  consciousness  of  those  more  general  rela- 
tions that  are  so  strangely  invisible  to  the  average  man 
in  ordinary  moods.  It  helps  to  keep  man  in  his  place 
in  nature,  and,  above  all,  it  helps  him  to  understand 
more  intelligently  the  responsibilities  of  his  place  in 
society.  And  in  all  this  generalization  of  interest,  we 
never  miss  those  small  humanities  that  are  at  the  op- 
posite pole  of  excellence  in  art  ;  and  while  we  admire 
the  intellect  that  could  see  life  thus  largely,  we  are 
touched  with  another  sentiment  for  the  tender  heart 


VICTOR  HUGO'S  ROMANCES.  57 

that  slipped  the  piece  of  gold  into  Cosette's  sabot,  that 
was  virginally  troubled  at  the  fluttering  of  her  dress  in 
the  spring  wind,  or  put  the  blind  girl  beside  the  de- 
formity of  the  laughing  man.  This,  then,  is  the  last 
praise  that  we  can  award  to  these  romances.  The 
author  has  shown  a  power  of  just  subordination  hith- 
erto unequalled  ;  and  as,  in  reaching  forward  to  one 
class  of  effects,  he  has  not  been  forgetful  or  careless  of 
the  other,  his  work  is  more  nearly  complete  work,  and 
his  art,  with  all  its  imperfections,  deals  more  compre- 
hensively with  the  materials  of  life  than  that  of  any  of 
his  otherwise  more  sure  and  masterly  predecessors. 

These  five  books  would  have  made  a  very  great  fame 
for  any  writer,  and  yet  they  are  but  one  fayade  of  the 
monument  that  Victor  Hugo  has  erected  to  his  genius. 
Everywhere  we  find  somewhat  the  same  greatness, 
somewhat  the  same  infirmities.  In  his  poems  and 
plays  there  are  the  same  unaccountable  protervities 
that  have  already  astonished  us  in  the  romances. 
There,  too,  is  the  same  feverish  strength,  welding  the 
fiery  iron  of  his  idea  under  forge-hammer  repetitions 
— an  emphasis  that  is  somehow  akin  to  weakness — a 
strength  that  is  a  little  epileptic.  He  stands  so  far 
above  all  his  contemporaries,  and  so  incomparably 
excels  them  in  richness,  breadth,  variety,  and  moral 
earnestness,  that  we  almost  feel  as  if  he  had  a  sort  of 
right  to  fall  oftener  and  more  heavily  than  others  ;  but 
this  does  not  reconcile  us  to  seeing  him  profit  by  the 
privilege  so  freely.  We  like  to  have,  in  our  great 
men,  something  that  is  above  question  ;  we  like  to 


58  VICTOR  HUGO'S  ROMANCES. 

place  an  implicit  faith  in  them,  and  see  them  always 
on  the  platform  of  their  greatness  ;  and  this,  unhap- 
pily, cannot  be  with  Hugo.  As  Heine  said  long  ago, 
his  is  a  genius  somewhat  deformed  ;  but,  deformed  as 
it  is,  we  accept  it  gladly  ;  we  shall  have  the  wisdom  to 
see  where  his  foot  slips,  but  we  shall  have  the  justice 
also  to  recognize  in  him  one  of  the  greatest  artists  of 
our  generation,  and,  in  many  ways,  one  of  the  great- 
est artists  of  time.  If  we  look  back,  yet  once,  upon 
these  five  romances,  we  see  blemishes  such  as  we  can 
lay  to  the  charge  of  no  other  man  in  the  number  of 
the  famous  ;  but  to  what  other  man  can  we  attribute 
such  sweeping  innovations,  such  a  new  and  signifi- 
cant presentment  of  the  life  of  man,  such  an  amount, 
if  we  merely  think  of  the  amount,  of  equally  consum- 
mate performance  ? 


SOME  ASPECTS   OF    ROBERT   BURNS. 

To  write  with  authority  about  another  man,  we 
must  have  fellow-feeUng  and  some  common  ground  of 
experience  with  our  subject.  We  may  praise  or  blame 
accordmg  as  we  find  him  related  to  us  by  the  best  or 
worst  in  ourselves  ;  but  it  is  only  in  virtue  of  some  re- 
lationship that  we  can  be  his  judges,  even  to  condemn, 
Feelings  which  we  share  and  understand  enter  for  us 
into  the  tissue  of  the  man's  character  ;  those  to  which 
we  are  strangers  in  our  own  experience  we  are  inclined 
to  regard  as  blots,  exceptions,  inconsistencies,  and  ex- 
cursions of  the  diabolic  ;  we  conceive  them  with  re- 
pugnance, explain  them  with  difficulty,  and  raise  our 
hands  to  heaven  in  wonder  when  we  find  them  in  con- 
junction with  talents  that  we  respect  or  virtues  that  we 
admire.  David,  king  of  Israel,  would  pass  a  sounder 
judgment  on  a  man  than  either  Nathaniel  or  David 
Hume.  Now,  Principal  Shairp's  recent  volume,  al- 
though I  believe  no  one  will  read  it  without  respect 
and  mterest,  has  this  one  capital  defect — that  there  is 
imperfect  sympathy  between  the  author  and  the  sub- 
ject, between  the  critic  and  the  personality  under  criti- 
cism. Hence  an  inorganic,  if  not  an  incoherent,  pres- 
entation of  both  the  poems  and  the  man.  Of  Holy 
Willie's  Prayer,  Principal  Shairp  remarks  that  "  those 


6o        SOME  ASPECTS  OF  ROBERT  BURNS. 

who  have  loved  most  what  was  best  in  Burns's  poetry 
must  have  regretted  that  it  was  ever  written."  To 
ihQ  Jolly  Beggars,  so  far  as  my  memory  serves  me,  he 
refers  but  once  ;  and  then  only  to  remark  on  the 
"  strange,  not  to  say  painful,"  circumstance  that  the 
same  hand  which  wrote  the  Colter  s  Saturday  Night 
should  have  stooped  to  write  the /o//_y  Beggars.  The 
Saturday  Night  may  or  may  not  be  an  admirable 
poem  ;  but  its  significance  is  trebled,  and  the  power 
and  range  of  the  poet  first  appears,  when  it  is  set  be- 
side \}L\e  Jolly  Beggars.  To  take  a  man's  work  piece- 
meal, except  with  the  design  of  elegant  extracts,  is  the 
way  to  avoid,  and  not  to  perform,  the  critic's  duty. 
The  same  defect  is  displayed  in  the  treatment  of  Burns 
as  a  man,  which  is  broken,  apologetical,  and  confused. 
The  man  here  presented  to  us  is  not  that  Burns, 
teres  atque  rotundus — a  burly  figure  in  literature,  as, 
from  our  present  vantage  of  time,  we  have  begun  to 
see  him.  This,  on  the  other  hand,  is  Burns  as  he 
may  have  appeared  to  a  contemporary  clerg}'man, 
whom  we  shall  conceive  to  have  been  a  kind  and  in- 
dulgent but  orderly  and  orthodox  person,  anxious  to 
be  pleased,  but  too  often  hurt  and  disappointed  by  the 
behavior  of  his  xeA-\\o\.  protege,  and  solacing  himself 
with  the  explanation  that  the  poet  was  "  the  most  in- 
consistent of  men."  If  you  are  so  sensibly  pained  by 
the  misconduct  of  your  subject,  and  so  paternally  de- 
lighted with  his  virtues,  you  will  always  be  an  excel- 
lent gentleman,  but  a  somewhat  questionable  biog- 
rapher.    Indeed,  we  can   only  be  sorry  and  surprised 


SOME  A  SPEC  TS  OF  ROBER  T  B  URN  S.        6 1 

that  Principal  Shairp  should  have  chosen  a  theme  so 
uncongenial.  When  we  find  a  man  writing  on  Burns, 
who  likes  neither  Holy  Willie,  nor  the  Beggars,  nor 
the  Ordination,  nothing  is  adequate  to  the  situation  but 
the  old  cry  of  Geronte  :  "  Que  diable  allait-il  faire 
dans  cette  galere  ?"  And  every  merit  we  find  in  the 
book,  which  is  sober  and  candid  in  a  degree  unusual 
with  biographies  of  Burns,  only  leads  us  to  regret  more 
heartily  that  good  work  should  be  so  greatly  thrown 
away. 

It  is  far  from  my  intention  to  tell  over  aga'in  a  story 
that  has  been  so  often  told  ;  but  there  are  certainly 
some  points  in  the  character  of  Burns  that  will  bear  to 
be  brought  out,  and  some  chapters  in  his  life  that  de- 
mand a  brief  rehearsal.  The  unity  of  the  man's  na- 
ture, for  all  its  richness,  has  fallen  somewhat  out  of 
sight  in  the  pressure  of  new  information  and  the 
apologetical  ceremony  of  biographers.  Mr.  Carlyle 
made  an  inimitable  bust  of  the  poet's  head  of  gold  ; 
may  I  not  be  forgiven  if  my  business  should  have  more 
to  do  with  the  feet,  which  were  of  clay  ? 

Youth. 

Any  view  of  Burns  would  be  misleading  which  passed 
over  in  silence  the  influences  of  his  home  and  his 
father.  That  father,  William  Burnes,  after  having  been 
for  many  years  a  gardener,  took  a  farm,  married,  and, 
like  an  emigrant  in  a  new  country,  built  himself  a 
house  with  his  own  hands.  Poverty  of  the  most  dis- 
tressing sort,  with  sometimes  the  near  prospect  of  a 


62        SOME  ASPECTS  OF  ROBERT  BURNS. 

jail,  embittered  the  remainder  of  his  life.  Chill,  back- 
ward, and  austere  with  strangers,  grave  and  imperious 
in  his  family,  he  was  yet  a  man  of  ver}'  unusual  parts 
and  of  an  affectionate  nature.  On  his  way  through 
life  he  had  remarked  much  upon  other  men,  with 
more  result  in  theory  than  practice  ;  and  he  had  re- 
flected upon  many  subjects  as  he  delved  the  garden. 
His  great  delight  was  in  solid  conversation  ;  he  would 
leave  his  work  to  talk  with  the  schoolmaster  Mur- 
doch ;  and  Robert,  when  he  came  home  late  at  night, 
not  only  turned  aside  rebuke  but  kept  his  father  two 
hours  beside  the  fire  by  the  charm  of  his  merry  and 
vigorous  talk.  Nothing  is  more  characteristic  of  the 
class  in  general,  and  William  Burnes  in  particular,  than 
the  pains  he  took  to  get  proper  schooling  for  his  boys, 
and,  when  that  was  no  longer  possible,  the  sense  and 
resolution  with  which  he  set  himself  to  supply  the  de- 
ficiency by  his  own  influence.  For  many  years  he  was 
their  chief  companion  ;  he  spoke  with  them  seriously 
on  all  subjects  as  if  they  had  been  grown  men  ;  at 
night,  when  work  was  over,  he  taught  them  arithmetic  ; 
he  borrowed  books  for  them  on  history,  science,  and 
theology  ;  and  he  felt  it  his  duty  to  supplement  this 
last — the  trait  is  laughably  Scottish — by  a  dialogue  of 
his  own  composition,  where  his  own  private  shade  of 
orthodoxy  was  exactly  represented.  He  would  go  to 
his  daughter  as  she  stayed  afield  herding  cattle,  to  teach 
her  the  names  of  grasses  and  wild  flowers,  or  to  sit  by 
her  side  when  it  thundered.  Distance  to  strangers, 
deep  family  tenderness,  love  of  knowledge,  a  narrow, 


SOME  ASPECTS  OF  ROBERT  BURNS.        63 

precise,  and  formal  reading  of  theology — everything 
we  learn  of  him  hangs  well  together,  and  builds  up  a 
popular  Scotch  type.  If  I  mention  the  name  of  An- 
drew Fairservice,  it  is  only  as  I  might  couple  for  an 
instant  Dugald  Dalgetty  with  old  Marshal  Loudon,  to 
help  out  the  reader's  comprehension  by  a  popular  but 
unworthy  instance  of  a  class.  Such  was  the  influence 
of  this  good  and  wise  man  that  his  household  became 
a  school  to  itself,  and  neighbors  who  came  into  the 
farm  at  meal-time  would  find  the  whole  family,  father, 
brothers,  and  sisters,  helping  themselves  with  one 
hand,  and  holding  a  book  in  the  other.  We  are  sur- 
prised at  the  prose  style  of  Robert  ;  that  of  Gilbert 
need  surprise  us  no  less  ;  even  William  writes  a  re- 
markable letter  for  a  young  man  of  such  slender  op- 
portunities. One  anecdote  marks  the  taste  of  the 
family.  Murdoch  brought  Tiius  Andronicus,  and, 
with  such  dominie  elocution  as  we  may  suppose,  be- 
gan to  read  it  aloud  before  this  rustic  audience  ;  but 
when  he  had  reached  the  passage  where  Tamora  in- 
sults Lavinia,  with  one  voice  and  "in  an  agony  of 
distress"  they  refused  to  hear  it  to  an  end.  In  such 
a  father  and  with  such  a  home,  Robert  had  already 
the  making  of  an  excellent  education  ;  and  what  Mur- 
doch added,  although  it  may  not  have  been  much  in 
amount,  was  in  character  the  very  essence  of  a  literary 
training.  Schools  and  colleges,  for  one  great  man 
whom  they  complete,  perhaps  unmake  a  dozen  ;  the 
strong  spirit  can  do  well  upon  more  scanty  fare. 

Robert  steps  before  us,  almost  from  the  first,  in  his 


64        SOME  ASPECTS  OF  ROBERT  BURNS. 

complete  character — a  proud,  headstrong,  impetuous 
lad,  greedy  of  pleasure,  greedy  of  notice  ;  in  his  own 
phrase  "  panting  after  distinction, "  and  in  his  brother's 
"  cherishing  a  particular  jealousy  of  people  who  were 
richer  or  of  more  consequence  than  himself  :"  with 
all  this,  he  was  emphatically  of  the  artist  nature.  Al- 
ready he  made  a  conspicuous  figure  in  Tarbolton 
church,  with  the  only  tied  hair  in  the  parish,  "and 
his  plaid,  which  was  of  a  particular  color,  wrapped  in 
a  particular  manner  round  his  shoulders."  Ten  years 
later,  when  a  married  man,  the  father  of  a  family,  a 
farmer,  and  an  officer  of  Excise,  we  shall  find  him  out 
fishing  in  masquerade,  with  fox-skin  cap,  belted  great- 
coat, and  great  Highland  broadsword.  He  liked 
dressing  up,  in  fact,  for  its  own  sake.  This  is  the 
spirit  which  leads  to  the  extravagant  array  of  Latin 
Quarter  students,  and  the  proverbial  velveteen  of  the 
English  landscape  painter  ;  and,  though  the  pleasure 
derived  is  in  itself  merely  personal,  it  shows  a  man 
who  is,  to  say  the  least  of  it,  not  pained  by  general  at- 
tention and  remark.  His  father  wrote  the  family 
name  Burnes  ;  Robert  early  adopted  the  orthography 
Bumess  from  his  cousin  in  the  Mearns  ;  and  in  his 
twenty-eighth  year  changed  it  once  more  to  Burns. 
It  is  plain  that  the  last  transformation  was  not  made 
without  some  qualm  ;  for  in  addressing  his  cousin  he 
adheres,  in  at  least  one  more  letter,  to  spelling  num- 
ber two.  And  this,  again,  shows  a  man  preoccupied 
about  the  manner  of  his  appearance  even  down  to  the 
name,  and  little  willing  to  follow  custom.     Again,  be 


SOME  ASPECTS  OF  ROBERT  BURNS.        65 

was  proud,  and  justly  proud,  of  his  powers  in  conver- 
sation. To  no  other  man's  have  we  the  same  conclu- 
sive testimony  from  different  sources  and  from  every 
rank  of  life.  It  is  almost  a  commonplace  that  the  best 
of  his  v/orks  was  what  he  said  in  talk.  Robertson  the 
historian  ' '  scarcely  ever  met  any  man  whose  conver- 
sation displayed  greater  vigor  ;"  the  Duchess  of  Gor- 
don declared  that  he  "  carried  her  off  her  feet  ;"  and, 
when  he  came  late  to  an  inn,  the  servants  would  get 
out  of  bed  to  hear  him  talk.  But,  in  these  early  days 
at  least,  he  was  determined  to  shine  by  any  means. 
He  made  himself  feared  in  the  village  for  his  tongue. 
He  would  crush  weaker  men  to  their  faces,  or  even 
perhaps — for  the  statement  of  Sillar  is  not  absolute — 
say  cutting  things  of  his  acquaintances  behind  their 
back.  At  the  church  door,  between  sermons,  he 
would  parade  his  religious  views  amid  hisses.  These 
details  stamp  the  man.  He  had  no  genteel  timidities 
in  the  conduct  of  his  life.  He  loved  to  force  his  per- 
sonality upon  the  world.  He  would  please  himself, 
and  shine.  Had  he  lived  in  the  Paris  of  1830,  and 
joined  his  lot  with  the  Romantics,  we  can  conceive 
him  writing  Jchan  for  Jea^i,  swaggering  in  Gautier's 
red  waistcoat,  and  horrifying  Bourgeois  in  a  public 
cafe  with  paradox  and  gasconnade. 

A  leading  trait  throughout  his  whole  career  was  his 
desire  to  be  in  love.  Ne  fait  pas  ce  iour  qui  veut. 
His  affections  were  often  enough  touched,  but  per- 
haps never  engaged.  He  was  all  his  life  on  a  voyage 
of  discovery,  but  it  does  not  appear  conclusively  that  he 


6 6        SOME  A  SPE CTS  OF  KOBE K  T  B  URNS. 

ever  touched  the  happy  isle.  A  man  brings  to  love 
a  deal  of  ready-made  sentiment,  and  even  from  child- 
hood obscurely  prognosticates  the  symptoms  of  this 
vital  malady.  Burns  was  formed  for  love  ;  he  had 
passion,  tenderness,  and  a  singular  bent  in  the  direc- 
tion ;  he  could  foresee,  with  the  intuition  of  an  artist, 
what  love  ought  to  be  ;  and  he  could  not  conceive  a 
worthy  life  without  it.  But  he  had  ill-fortune,  and 
was  besides  so  greedy  after  every  shadow  of  the  true 
divinity,  and  so  much  the  slave  of  a  strong  tempera- 
ment, that  perhaps  his  nerve  was  relaxed  and  his  heart 
had  lost  the  power  of  self-devotion  before  an  oppor- 
tunity occurred.  The  circumstances  of  his  youth 
doubtless  counted  for  something  in  the  result.  For 
the  lads  of  Ayrshire,  as  soon  as  the  day's  work  was 
over  and  the  beasts  were  stabled,  would  take  the  road, 
it  might  be  in  a  winter  tempest,  and  travel  perhaps 
miles  by  moss  and  moorland  to  spend  an  hour  or  two 
in  courtship.  Rule  lo  of  the  Bachelors'  Club  at  Tar- 
bolton  provides  that  "  every  man  proper  for  a  member 
of  this  Society  must  be  a  professed  lover  of  otie  or 
wzo/'e  of  the  female  sex."  The  rich,  as  Burns  himself 
points  out,  may  have  a  choice  of  pleasurable  occupa- 
tions, but  these  lads  had  nothing  but  their  "  cannie 
hour  at  e'en."  It  was  upon  love  and  flirtation  that 
this  rustic  society  was  built ;  gallantry  was  the  es- 
sence of  life  among  the  Ayrshire  hills  as  well  as  in  the 
Court  of  Versailles  ;  and  the  days  were  distinguished 
from  each  other  by  love-letters,  meetings,  tiffs,  recon- 
ciliations, and  expansions  to  the  chosen  confidant,  as 


SOME  ASPECTS  OF  ROBERT  BURNS.        67 

in  a  comedy  of  Marivaux.  Here  was  a  field  for  a 
man  of  Burns's  indiscriminate  personal  ambition, 
where  he  might  pursue  his  voyage  of  discovery  in 
quest  of  true  love,  and  enjoy  temporary  triumphs  by 
the  way.  He  was  "  constantly  the  victim  of  some  fair 
enslaver" — at  least,  when  it  was  not  the  other  way 
about ;  and  there  were  often  underplots  and  second- 
ary fair  enslavers  in  the  background.  Many — or  may 
we  not  say  most  ? — of  these  affairs  were  entirely  arti- 
ficial. One,  he  tells  us,  he  began  out  of  "  a  vanity 
of  showing  his  parts  in  courtship,"  for  he  piqued  him- 
self on  his  ability  at  a  love-letter.  But,  however  they 
began,  these  flames  of  his  were  fanned  into  a  passion 
ere  the  end  ;  and  he  stands  unsurpassed  in  his  power 
of  self-deception,  and  positively  without  a  competitor 
in  the  art,  to  use  his  own  words,  of  "  battering  him- 
self into  a  warm  affection," — a  debilitating  and  futile 
exercise.  Once  he  had  worked  himself  into  the  vein, 
"  the  agitations  of  his  mind  and  body"  were  an  aston- 
ishment to  all  who  knew  him.  Such  a  course  as  this, 
however  pleasant  to  a  thirsty  vanity,  was  lowering  to 
his  nature.  He  sank  more  and  more  toward  the  pro- 
fessional Don  Juan.  With  a  leer  of  what  the  French 
call  fatuity,  he  bids  the  belles  of  Mauchline  beware  of 
his  seductions  ;  and  the  same  cheap  self-satisfaction 
finds  a  yet  uglier  vent  when  he  plumes  himself  on  the 
scandal  at  the  birth  of  his  first  bastard.  We  can  well 
believe  what  we  hear  of  his  facility  in  striking  up  an 
acquaintance  with  women  :  he  would  have  conquer- 
ing manners  ;  he  would  bear  down  upon  his  rustic 


68        SOME  ASPECTS  OF  ROBERT  BURNS. 

game  with  the  grace  that  comes  of  absolute  assurance 
— the  Richeheu  of  Lochlea  or  Mossgiel.  In  yet  an- 
other manner  did  these  quaint  ways  of  courtship  help 
him  into  fame.  If  he  were  great  as  principal,  he  was 
unrivalled  as  confidant.  He  could  enter  into  a  pas- 
sion ;  he  could  counsel  wary  moves,  being,  in  his  own 
phrase,  so  old  a  hawk  ;  nay,  he  could  turn  a  letter  for 
some  unlucky  swain,  or  even  string  a  few  lines  of  verse 
that  should  clinch  the  business  and  fetch  the  hesitating 
fair  one  to  the  ground.  Nor,  perhaps,  was  it  only  his 
"curiosity,  zeal,  and  intrepid  dexterity"  that  recom- 
mended him  for  a  second  in  such  affairs  ;  it  must 
have  been  a  distinction  to  have  the  assistance  and  ad- 
vice of  Rab  Ihe  Ranter;  and  one  who  was  in  no  way 
formidable  by  himself  might  grow  dangerous  and  at- 
tractive through  the  fame  of  his  associate. 

I  think  we  can  conceive  him,  in  these  early  years, 
in  that  rough  moorland  country,  poor  among  the  poor 
with  his  seven  pounds  a  year,  looked  upon  with  doubt 
by  respectable  elders,  but  for  all  that  the  best  talker, 
the  best  letter-writer,  the  most  famous  lover  and  con- 
fidant, the  laureate  poet,  and  the  only  man  who  wore 
his  hair  tied  in  the  parish.  He  says  he  had  then  as 
high  a  notion  of  himself  as  ever  after  ;  and  I  can  well 
believe  it.  Among  the  youth  he  walked  y<7c//^/'rw- 
ceps,  an  apparent  god  ;  and  even  if,  from  time  to 
time,  the  Reverend  I\Ir.  Auld  should  swoop  upon  him 
with  the  thunders  of  the  Church,  and,  in  company 
with  seven  others,  Rab  the  Ranter  must  figure  some 
fine  Sunday  on  the  stool  of  repentance,  would  there 


SOME  ASPECTS  OF  ROBERT  BURNS.        69 

not  be  a  sort  of ,  glory,  an  infernal  apotheosis,  in  so 
conspicuous  a  shame  ?  Was  not  Richelieu  in  disgrace 
more  idolized  than  ever  by  the  dames  of  Paris  ?  and 
when  was  the  highwayman  most  acclaimed  but  on 
his  way  to  Tyburn  ?  Or,  to  take  a  simile  from  nearer 
home,  and  still  more  exactly  to  the  point,  what  could 
even  corporal  punishment  avail,  administered  by  a 
cold,  abstract,  unearthly  schoolmaster,  against  the  in- 
fluence and  fame  of  the  school's  hero  ? 

And  now  we  come  to  the  culminating  point  of 
Burns' s  early  period.  He  began  to  be  received  into 
the  unknown  upper  world.  His  fame  soon  spread 
from  among  his  fellow-rebels  on  the  benches,  and  be- 
gan to  reach  the  ushers  and  monitors  of  this  great 
Ayrshire  academy.  This  arose  in  part  from  his  la.x 
views  about  religion  ;  for  at  this  time  that  old  war  of 
the  creeds  and  confessors,  which  is  always  grumbling 
from  end  to  end  of  our  poor  Scotland,  brisked  up  in 
these  parts  into  a  hot  and  virulent  skirmish  ;  and 
Burns  found  himself  identified  with  the  opposition 
party, — a  clique  of  roaring  lawyers  and  half-heretical 
divines,  with  wit  enough  to  appreciate  the  value  of  the 
poet's  help,  and  not  sufiicient  taste  to  moderate  his 
grossness  and  personality.  We  may  judge  of  their 
surprise  when  Holy  Willie  was  put  into  their  hand  ; 
like  the  amorous  lads  of  Tarbolton,  they  recognized 
in  him  the  best  of  seconds.  His  satires  began  to  go 
the  round  in  manuscript ;  Mr.  Aiken,  one  of  the 
lawyers,  "  read  him  into  fame  ;"  he  himself  was  soon 
welcome  in   many  houses  of  a  better  sort,  where  his 


70        SOME  ASPECTS  OF  ROBERT  BURNS. 

admirable  talk,  and  his  manners,  which  he  had  direct 
from  his  Maker,  except  for  a  brush  he  gave  them  at  a 
country  dancing  school,  completed  what  his  poems 
had  begun.  We  have  a  sight  of  him  at  his  first  visit 
to  Adamhill,  in  his  ploughman's  shoes,  coasting 
around  the  carpet  as  though  that  were  sacred  ground. 
But  he  soon  grew  used  to  carpets  and  their  owners  ; 
and  he  was  still  the  superior  of  all  whom  he  encoun- 
tered, and  ruled  the  roost  in  conversation.  Such  was 
the  impression  made,  that  a  young  clergyman,  himself 
a  man  of  ability,  trembled  and  became  confused  when 
he  saw  Robert  enter  the  church  in  which  he  was  to 
preach.  It  is  not  surprising  that  the  poet  determined 
to  publish  :  he  had  now  stood  the  test  of  some  pub- 
licity, and  under  this  hopeful  impulse  he  composed  in 
six  winter  months  the  bulk  of  his  more  important 
poems.  Here  was  a  young  man  who,  from  a  very 
humble  place,  was  mounting  rapidly  ;  from  the  cyno- 
sure of  a  parish,  he  had  become  the  talk  of  a  county  ; 
once  the  bard  of  rural  courtships,  he  was  now  about 
to  appear  as  a  bound  and  printed  poet  in  the  world's 
bookshops. 

A  few  more  intimate  strokes  are  necessary  to  com- 
plete the  sketch.  This  strong  young  ploughman, 
who  feared  no  competitor  with  the  flail,  suffered  like 
a  fine  lady  from  sleeplessness  and  vapors  ;  he  would 
fall  into  the  blackest  melancholies,  and  be  filled  with 
remorse  for  the  past  and  terror  for  the  future.  He 
was  still  not  perhaps  devoted  to  religion,  but  haunted 
by  it ;  and  at  a  touch  of  sickness  prostrated  himself 


SOME  ASPECTS  OF  ROBERT  BURNS.        71 

before  God  in  what  I  can  only  call  unmanly  peni- 
tence. As  he  had  aspirations  beyond  his  place  in  the 
world,  so  he  had  tastes,  thoughts,  and  weaknesses  to 
match.  He  loved  to  walk  under  a  wood  to  the  sound 
of  a  winter  tempest ;  he  had  a  singular  tenderness  for 
animals  ;  he  carried  a  book  with  him  in  his  pocket 
when  he  went  abroad,  and  wore  out  in  this  service 
two  copies  of  the  Man  of  Feeling.  With  young  people 
in  the  field  at  work  he  was  very  long-suffering  ;  and 
when  his  brother  Gilbert  spoke  sharply  to  them — "  O 
man,  ye  are  no  for  young  folk,"  he  would  say,  and 
give  the  defaulter  a  helping  hand  and  a  smile.  In 
the  hearts  of  the  men  whom  he  met,  he  read  as  in  a 
book  ;  and,  what  is  yet  more  rare,  his  knowledge  of 
himself  equalled  his  knowledge  of  others.  There  are 
no  truer  things  said  of  Burns  than  what  is  to  be  found 
in  his  own  letters.  Country  Don  juan  as  he  was,  he 
had  none  of  that  blind  vanity  which  values  itself  on 
what  it  is  not  ;  he  knew  his  own  strength  and  weak- 
ness to  a  hair  :  he  took  himself  boldly  for  what  he 
was,  and,  except  in  moments  of  hypochondria,  de- 
clared himself  content. 

The  Love  Stories. 

On  the  night  of  Mauchline  races,  1785,  the  young 
men  and  women  of  the  place  joined  in  a  penny  ball, 
according  to  their  custom.  In  the  same  set  danced 
Jean  Armour,  the  master-mason's  daughter,  and  our 
dark-eyed  Don  Juan.  His  dog  (not  the  immortal 
Luath,  but  a  successor  unknown  to  fame,  caret  quia 


7  2        SOME  A  SPE CTS  OF  RO BEK  T  B  URNS. 

vale  sacro),  apparently  sensible  of  some  neglect,  fol- 
lowed his  master  to  and  fro,  to  the  confusion  of  the 
dancers.  Some  mirthful  comments  followed  ;  and 
Jean  heard  the  poet  say  to  his  partner — or,  as  I  should 
imagine,  laughingly  launch  the  remark  to  the  com- 
pany at  large — that  ' '  he  wished  he  could  get  any  of 
the  lasses  to  like  him  as  well  as  his  dog."  Some 
time  after,  as  the  girl  was  bleaching  clothes  on  IMauch- 
line  green,  Robert  chanced  to  go  by,  still  accompanied 
by  his  dog  ;  and  the  dog,  "  scouring  in  long  excur- 
sion," scampered  with  four  black  paws  across  the 
linen.  This  brought  the  two  into  conversation  ;  when 
Jean,  with  a  somewhat  hoydenish  advance,  inquired 
if  "  he  had  yet  got  any  of  the  lasses  to  like  him  as 
well  as  his  dog  :"  It  is  one  of  the  misfortunes  of  the 
professional  Don  Juan  that  his  honor  forbids  him  to 
refuse  battle  ;  he  is  in  life  like  the  Roman  soldier 
upon  duty,  or  like  the  sworn  physician  who  must  at- 
tend on  all  diseases.  Burns  accepted  the  provocation  ; 
hungry  hope  reawakened  in  his  heart ;  here  was  a 
girl— pretty,  simple  at  least,  if  not  honestly  stupid, 
and  plainly  not  averse  to  his  attentions  :  it  seemed  to 
him  once  more  as  if  love  might  here  be  waiting  him. 
Had  he  but  known  the  truth  !  for  this  facile  and 
empty-headed  girl  had  nothing  more  in  view  than  a 
flirtation  ;  and  her  heart,  from  the  first  and  on  to  the 
end  of  her  story,  was  engaged  by  another  man. 
Burns  once  more  commenced  the  celebrated  process 
of  "  battering  himself  into  a  warm  affection  ;"  and 
the  proofs  of   his  success  are  to  be  found  in  many 


SOME  A SPE CTS  OE  ROBERT  B URNS.        7 3 

verses  of  the  period.  Nor  did  he  succeed  with  himseU 
only  ;  Jean,  with  her  heart  still  elsewhere,  succumbed 
to  his  fascination,  and  early  in  the  next  year  the  nat- 
ural consequence  became  manifest.  It  was  a  heavy 
stroke  for  this  unfortunate  couple.  They  had  trifled 
with  life,  and  were  now  rudely  reminded  of  life's  seri- 
ous issues.  Jean  awoke  to  the  ruin  of  her  hopes  ;  the 
best  she  had  now  to  expect  was  marriage  with  a  man 
who  was  a  stranger  to  her  dearest  thoughts  ;  she 
might  now  be  glad  if  she  could  get  what  she  would 
never  have  chosen.  As  for  Burns,  at  the  stroke  of 
the  calamity  he  recognized  that  his  voyage  of  discov- 
ery had  led  him  into  a  wrong  hemisphere — that  he 
was  not,  and  never  had  been,  really  in  love  with 
Jean.  Hear  him  in  the  pressure  of  the  hour. 
"  Against  two  things,"  he  writes,  "  I  am  as  fixed  as 
fate — staying  at  home,  and  owning  her  conjugally. 
The  first,  by  heaven,  I  will  not  do  ! — the  last,  by 
hell,  I  will  never  do  !"  And  then  he  adds,  perhaps 
already  in  a  more  relenting  temper  :  "If  you  see 
Jean,  tell  her  I  will  meet  her,  so  God  help  me  in  my 
hour  of  need."  They  met  accordingly  ;  and  Burns, 
touched  with  her  misery,  came  down  from  these 
heights  of  independence,  and  gave  her  a  written  ac- 
knowledgment of  marriage.  It  is  the  punishment  of 
Don  Juanism  to  create  continually  false  positions — 
relations  in  life  which  are  wrong  in  themselves,  and 
which  it  is  equally  wrong  to  break  or  to  perpetuate. 
This  was  such  a  case.  Worldly  Wiseman  would  have 
laughed  and  gone  his  way  ;  let  us  be  glad  that  Burnj 


7 4        SOME  A SPE CTS  OF  R OBER T  B  URNS. 

was  better  counselled  by  his  heart.  When  we  discover 
that  we  can  be  no  longer  true,  the  next  best  is  to  be 
kind.  I  dare  say  he  came  away  from  that  interview 
not  very  content,  but  with  a  glorious  conscience  ; 
and  as  he  went  homeward,  he  would  sing  his  favorite, 
"  How  are  Thy  servants  blest,  O  Lord  !"  Jean,  on 
the  other  hand,  armed  with  her  "  lines,"  confided  her 
position  to  the  master-mason,  her  lather,  and  his  wife. 
Burns  and  his  brother  were  then  in  a  fair  way  to  ruin 
themselves  in  their  farm  ;  the  poet  was  an  execrable 
match  for  any  well-to-do  country  lass  ;  and  perhaps 
old  Armour  had  an  inkling  of  a  previous  attachment 
on  his  daughter's  part.  At  least,  he  was  not  so  much 
incensed  by  her  slip  from  virtue  as  by  the  marriage 
which  had  been  designed  to  cover  it.  Of  this  he 
would  not  hear  a  word.  Jean,  who  had  besought  the 
acknowledgment  only  to  appease  her  parents,  and  not 
at  all  from  any  violent  inclination  to  the  poet,  readily 
gave  up  the  paper  for  destruction  ;  and  all  parties 
imagined,  although  wrongly,  that  the  marriage  was 
thus  dissolved.  To  a  proud  man  like  Burns  here  was 
a  crushing  blow.  The  concession  which  had  been 
wrung  from  his  pity  was  now  publicly  thrown  back  in 
his  teeth.  The  Armour  family  preferred  disgrace  to 
his  connection.  Since  the  promise,  besides,  he  had 
doubtless  been  busy  "  battering  himself"  back  again 
into  his  affection  for  the  girl  ;  and  the  blow  would 
not  only  take  him  in  his  vanity,  but  wound  him  at 
the  heart. 

He  relieved  himself  in  verse  :  but  for  such  a  smart- 


SOME  ASPECTS  OF  ROBERT  BURNS.        75 

ing  affront  manuscript  poetry  was  insufficient  to  con. 
sole  him.  He  must  find  a  more  powerful  remedy  in 
good  flesh  and  blood,  and  after  this  discomfiture,  set 
forth  again  at  once  upon  his  voyage  of  discovery  in 
quest  of  love.  It  is  perhaps  one  of  the  most  touching 
things  in  human  nature,  as  it  is  a  commonplace  of 
psychology,  that  when  a  man  has  just  lost  hope  or 
confidence  in  one  love,  he  is  then  most  eager  to  find 
and  lean  upon  another.  The  universe  could  not  be 
yet  exhausted  ;  there  must  be  hope  and  love  waiting 
for  him  somewhere  ;  and  so,  with  his  head  down,  this 
poor,  insulted  poet  ran  once  more  upon  his  fate. 
There  was  an  innocent  and  gentle  Highland  nursery- 
maid at  service  in  a  neighboring  family  ;  and  he  had 
soon  battered  himself  and  her  into  a  warm  affection 
and  a  secret  engagement.  Jean's  marriage  lines  had 
not  been  destroyed  till  March  13,  1786  ;  yet  all  was 
settled  between  Burns  and  Mary  Campbell  by  Sunday, 
j\Iay  14,  when  they  met  for  the  last  time,  and  said 
farewell  with  rustic  solemnities  upon  the  banks  of 
Ayr.  They  each  wet  their  hands  in  a  stream,  and, 
standing  one  on  either  bank,  held  a  Bible  between 
them  as  they  vowed  eternal  faith.  Then  they  ex- 
changed Bibles,  on  one  of  which  Burns,  for  greater 
security,  had  inscribed  texts  as  to  the  binding  nature 
of  an  oath  ;  and  surely,  if  ceremony  can  do  aught  to 
fix  the  wandering  affections,  here  were  two  people 
united  for  life,  Mary  came  of  a  superstitious  family, 
so  that  she  perhaps  insisted  on  these  rites  ;  but  they 
must  have  been  eminently  to  the   taste  of  Burns  at 


76        SOME  ASPECTS  OF  ROBERT  BURNS. 

this  period  ;  for  nothing  would  seem  superfluous,  and 
no  oath  great  enough,  to  stay  his  tottering  constancy. 
Events  of  consequence  now  happened  thickly  in 
the  poet's  life.  His  book  was  announced  ;  the 
Armours  sought  to  summon  him  at  law  for  the  ali  • 
ment  of  the  child  ;  he  lay  here  and  there  in  hiding  to 
correct  the  sheets  ;  he  was  under  an  engagement  for 
Jamaica,  where  jMary  was  to  join  him  as  his  wife  ; 
now,  he  had  "  orders  within  three  weeks  at  latest  to 
repair  aboard  the  Xancy,  Captain  Smith  ;"  now  his 
chest  was  already  on  the  road  to  Greenock  ;  and  now, 
in  the  wild  autumn  weather  on  the  moorland,  he 
measures  verses  of  farewell  :  — 

"  The  bursting  tears  my  heart  declare  ; 
Farewell  the  bonny  banks  of  Aj'r  !" 

But  the  great  master  dramatist  had  secretly  another  in- 
tention for  the  piece  ;  by  the  most  violent  and  com- 
plicated solution,  in  which  death  and  birth  and  sud- 
den fame  all  play  a  part  as  interposing  deities,  the 
act-drop  fell  upon  a  scene  of  transformation.  Jean 
was  brought  to  bed  of  twins,  and,  by  an  amicable  ar- 
rangement, the  Burnses  took  the  boy  to  bring  up  by 
hand,  while  the  girl  remained  with  her  mother.  The 
success  of  the  book  was  immediate  and  emphatic  ;  it 
put_^20  at  once  into  the  author's  purse  ;  and  he  was 
encouraged  upon  all  hands  to  go  to  Edinburgh  and 
push  his  success  in  a  second  and  larger  edition. 
Third  and  last  in  these  series  of  interpositions,  a  letter 
came  one  day  to  Mossgiel  Farm  for  Robert.  He 
went  to  the  window  to  read  it ;  a  sudden  change  came 


SO^fE  ASPECTS  OF  ROBERT  BURNS.        77 

over  his  face,  and  he  left  the  room  without  a  word. 
Years  afterward,  when  the  story  began  to  leak  out,  his 
family  understood  that  he  had  then  learned  the  death 
of  Highland  IMary.  Except  in  a  few  poems  and  a  few 
dry  indications  purposely  misleading  as  to  date,  Burns 
himself  made  no  reference  to  this  passage  of  his  life  ; 
it  was  an  adventure  of  which,  for  I  think  sufficient 
reasons,  he  desired  to  bury  the  details.  Of  one  thing 
we  may  be  glad  :  in  after  years  he  visited  the  poor 
girl's  mother,  and  left  her  with  the  impression  that  he 
was  "  a  real  warm-hearted  chield. " 

Perhaps  a  month  after  he  received  this  intelligence, 
he  set  out  for  Edinburgh  on  a  pony  he  had  borrowed 
from  a  friend.  The  town  that  winter  was  "  agog  with 
the  ploughman  poet.  "  Robertson,  Dugald  Stewart, 
Blair,  "  Duchess  Gordon  and  all  the  gay  world," 
were  of  his  acquaintance.  Such  a  revolution  is  not 
to  be  found  in  literary  history.  He  was  now,  it  must 
be  remembered,  twenty-seven  years  of  age  ;  he  had 
fought  since  his  early  boyhood  an  obstinate  battle 
against  poor  soil,  bad  seed,  and  inclement  seasons, 
wading  deep  in  Ayrshire  mosses,  guiding  the  plough 
in  the  furrow,  wielding  "  the  thresher's  weary  flingin' - 
tree  ;"  and  his  education,  his  diet,  and  his  pleasures, 
had  been  those  of  a  Scotch  countryman.  Now  he 
stepped  forth  suddenly  among  the  polite  and  learned. 
We  can  see  him  as  he  then  was,  in  his  boots  and 
buckskins,  his  blue  coat  and  waistcoat  striped  with 
buff  and  blue,  like  a  farmer  in  his  Sunday  best  ;  the 
heavy  ploughman's  figure  firmly  planted  on  its  burly 


78        SOME  ASPECTS  OF  ROBERT  BURNS. 

legs  ;  his  face  full  of  sense  and  shrewdness,  and  with 
a  somewhat  melancholy  air  of  thought,  and  his  large 
dark  eye  "  literally  glowing"  as  he  spoke.  "  I  never 
saw  such  another  eye  in  a  human  head,"  says  Walter 
Scott,  "though  I  have  seen  the  most  distinguished 
men  of  my  time."  With  men,  whether  they  were 
lords  or  omnipotent  critics,  his  manner  was  plain,  dig- 
nified, and  free  from  bashfulness  or  affectation.  If 
he  made  a  slip,  he  had  the  social  courage  to  pass  on 
and  refrain  from  explanation.  He  was  not  embar- 
rassed in  this  society,  because  he  read  and  judged  the 
men  ;  he  could  spy  snobbery  in  a  titled  lord  ;  and, 
as  tor  the  critics,  he  dismissed  their  system  in  an  epi- 
gram. "These  gentlemen,"  said  he,  "remind  me 
of  some  spinsters  in  my  country  who  spin  their  thread 
so  fine  that  it  is  neither  fit  for  weft  nor  woof." 
Ladies,  on  the  other  hand,  surprised  him  ;  he  was 
scarce  commander  of  himself  in  their  society  ;  he  was 
disqualified  by  his  acquired  nature  as  a  Don  Juan  ; 
and  he,  who  had  been  so  much  at  his  ease  with  coun- 
try lasses,  treated  the  town  dames  to  an  extreme  of 
deference.  One  lady,  who  met  him  at  a  ball,  gave 
Chambers  a  speaking  sketch  of  his  demeanor.  "  His 
manner  was  not  prepossessing — scarcely,  she  thinks, 
manly  or  natural.  It  seemed  as  if  he  affected  a  rus- 
ticity or  lajiderttiess,  so  that  when  he  said  the  music 
was  '  bonnie,  bonnie, '  it  was  like  the  expression  of  a 
child."  These  would  be  company  manners;  and 
doubtless  on  a  slight  degree  of  intimacy  the  affecta- 
tion would  grow  less.      And   his  talk   to  women  had 


SOME  ASPECTS  OF  ROBERT  BURNS.        79 

always   *'  a  turn   either  to  the  pathetic  or  humorous, 
which  engaged  the  attention  particularly." 

The  Edinburgh  magnates  (to  conclude  this  episode 
at  once)  behaved  well  to  Burns  from  first  to  last. 
Were  heaven-born  genius  to  revisit  us  in  similar  guise, 
I  am  not  venturing  too  far  when  I  say  that  he  need 
expect  neither  so  warm  a  welcome  nor  such  solid 
help.  Although  Burns  was  only  a  peasant,  and  one 
of  no  very  elegant  reputation  as  to  morals,  he  was 
made  welcome  to  their  homes.  They  gave  him  a 
great  deal  of  good  advice,  helped  him  to  some  five 
hundred  pounds  of  ready  money,  and  got  him,  as 
soon  as  he  asked  it,  a  place  in  the  Excise.  Burns,  on 
his  part,  bore  the  elevation  with  perfect  dignity  ;  and 
with  perfect  dignity  returned,  when  the  time  had 
come,  into  a  country  privacy  of  life.  His  powerful 
sense  never  deserted  him,  and  from  the  first  he  recog- 
nized that  his  Edinburgh  popularity  was  but  an  ova- 
tion and  the  affair  of  a  day.  He  wrote  a  few  letters 
in  a  high-flown,  bombastic  vein  of  gratitude  ;  but  in 
practice  he  suffered  no  man  to  intrude  upon  his  self- 
respect.  On  the  other  hand,  he  never  turned  his 
back,  even  for  a  moment,  on  his  old  associates  ;  and 
he  was  always  ready  to  sacrifice  an  acquaintance  to  a 
friend,  although  the  acquaintance  were  a  duke.  He 
would  be  a  bold  man  who  should  promise  similar 
conduct  in  equally  exacting  circumstances.  It  was, 
in  short,  an  admirable,  appearance  on  the  stage  of  life 
— socially  successful,  intimately  self-respecting,  and 
like  a  gentleman  from  first  to  last. 


8o        SOME  ASPECTS  OF  ROBERT  BURNS. 

In  the  present  study,  this  must  only  be  taken  by 
the  way,  while  we  return  to  Burns' s  love  affairs.  Even 
on  the  road  to  Edinburgh  he  had  seized  upon  the  op- 
portunity of  a  flirtation,  and  had  carried  the  "  batter- 
ing" so  far  that  when  next  he  moved  from  town,  it 
was  to  steal  two  days  with  this  anonymous  fair  one. 
The  exact  importance  to  Burns  of  this  affair  may  be 
gathered  from  the  song  in  which  he  commemorated 
its  occurrence.  "I  love  the  dear  lassie, ''  he  sings, 
"  because  she  loves  me  ;"  or,  in  the  tongue  of  prose  : 
"  Finding  an  opportunity,  I  did  not  hesitate  to  profit 
by  it  ;  and  even  now,  if  it  returned,  I  should  not  hesi- 
tate to  profit  by  it  again."  A  love  thus  founded  has 
no  interest  for  mortal  man.  Meantime,  early  in  the 
winter,  and  only  once,  we  find  him  regretting  Jean  in 
his  correspondence.  "  Because" — such  is  his  reason 
— "because  he  does  not  think  he  will  ever  meet  so 
delicious  an  armful  again  ;"  and  then,  after  a  brief 
excursion  into  verse,  he  goes  straight  on  to  describe  a 
new  episode  in  the  voyage  of  discovery  with  the  daugh- 
ter of  a  Lothian  farmer  for  a  heroine.  I  must  ask  the 
reader  to  follow  all  these  references  to  his  future  wife ; 
they  are  essential  to  the  comprehension  of  Burns's 
character  and  fate.  In  June,  we  find  him  back  at 
IMauchline,  a  famous  man.  There,  the  Armour 
family  greeted  him  with  a  "  mean,  ser\-ile  compli- 
ance," which  increased  his  former  disgust.  Jean  was 
not  less  compliant  ;  a  second  time  the  poor  girl  sub- 
mitted to  the  fascination  of  the  man  whom  she  did 
not  love,  and  whom  she  had  so  cruelly  insulted  little 


SOME  ASPECTS  OF  ROBERT  BURNS.         8i 

more  than  a  year  ago  ;  and,  though  Burns  took  ad- 
vantage of  her  weakness,  it  was  in  the  ugHest  and  most 
cynical  spirit,  and  with  a  heart  absolutely  indifferent. 
Judge  of  this  by  a  letter  written  some  twenty  days  after 
his  return — a  letter  to  my  mind  among  the  most  de- 
giading  in  the  Avhole  collection — a  letter  which  seems 
to  have  been  inspired  by  a  boastful,  libertine  bagman. 
"  I  am  afraid,"  it  goes,  "  I  have  almost  ruined  one 
source,  the  principal  one,  indeed,  of  my  former  hap- 
piness— the  eternal  propensity  I  always  had  to  fall  in 
love.  My  heart  no  more  glows  with  feverish  rapture  ; 
I  have  no  paradisiacal  evening  interviews."  Even  the 
process  of  "  battering"  has  failed  him,  you  perceive. 
Still  he  had  some  one  in  his  eye  —  a  lady,  if  you 
please,  with  a  fine  figure  and  elegant  manners,  and 
who  had  "  seen  the  politest  quarters  in  Europe."  "  I 
frequently  visited  her,"  he  writes,  "  and  after  passing 
regularly  the  intermediate  degrees  between  the  distant 
formal  bow  and  the  familiar  grasp  round  the  waist,  I 
ventured,  in  my  careless  way,  to  talk  of  friendship  in 
rather  ambiguous  terms  ;  and  after  her  return  to 
,  I  wrote  her  in  the  same  terms.  Miss,  con- 
struing my  remarks  further  than  even  I  intended,  flew 
off  in  a  tangent  of  female  dignity  and  reserve,  like  a 
mounting  lark  in  an  April  morning  ;  and  wrote  me 
an  answer  which  measured  out  very  completely  what 
an  immense  way  I  had  to  travel  before  I  could  reach 
the  climate  of  her  favors.  But  I  am  an  old  hawk  at 
the  sport,  and  wrote  her  such  a  cool,  deliberate,  pru- 
dent reply,  as  brought  my  bird  from  her  aerial  tower- 


82        SOME  ASPECTS  OF  ROBERT  BURKS. 

ings,  pop,  down  to  my  foot,  like  Corporal  Trim's 
hat,"  I  avow  a  carnal  longing,  after  this  transcrip- 
tion, to  buffet  the  Old  Hawk  about  the  ears.  There 
is  little  question  that  to  this  lady  he  must  have  re- 
peated his  addresses,  and  that  he  was  by  her  (I\Iiss 
Chalmers)  eventually,  though  not  at  all  unkindly,  re- 
jected. One  more  detail  to  characterize  the  period. 
Six  months  after  the  date  of  this  letter.  Burns,  back  in 
Edinburgh,  is  served  with  a  writ  in  vieditatione  /ugce, 
on  behalf  of  some  Edinburgh  fair  one,  probably  of 
humble  rank,  who  declared  an  intention  of  adding  to 
his  family. 

About  the  beginning  of  December  (1787),  anew 
period  opens  in  the  story  of  the  poet's  random  affec- 
tions. He  met  at  a  tea  party  one  Mrs.  Agnes 
M'Lehose,  a  married  woman  of  about  his  own  age, 
who,  with  her  two  children,  had  been  deserted  by  an 
unworthy  husband.  She  had  wit,  could  use  her  pen, 
and  had  read  Weriher  with  attention.  Sociable,  and 
even  somewhat  frisky,  there  was  a  good,  sound,  hu- 
man kernel  in  the  woman  ;  a  warmth  of  love,  strong 
dogmatic  religious  feeling,  and  a  considerable,  but 
not  authoritative,  sense  of  the  proprieties.  Of  what 
biographers  refer  to  daintily  as  "  her  somewhat  volup- 
tuous style  of  beauty,"  judging  from  the  silhouette 
in  Mr.  Scott  Douglas's  invaluable  edition,  the  reader 
will  be  fastidious  if  he  does  not  approve.  Take  her 
for  all  in  all,  I  believe  she  was  the  best  woman  Burns 
encountered.  The  pair  took  a  fancy  for  each  other 
on  the  spot ;  Mrs.  M'Lehose,    in  her  turn,    invited 


SOME  ASPECTS  OF  ROBERT  BURNS.        83 

him  to  tea  ;  but  the  poet,  in  his  character  of  the  Old 
Hawk,  preferred  a  tcte-a-tete,  excused  himself  at  the 
last  moment,  and  offered  a  visit  instead.  An  accident 
confined  him  to  his  room  for  nearly  a  month,  and  this 
led  to  the  famous  Clarinda  and  Sylvander  correspond- 
ence. It  was  begun  in  simple  sport ;  they  are  al- 
ready at  their  fifth  or  sixth  exchange,  when  Clarinda 
writes  :  "  It  is  really  curious  so  much _//<!«  passing  be- 
tween two  persons  who  saw  each  other  ov\y  once  J' 
but  it  is  hardly  safe  for  a  man  and  woman  in  the  flower 
of  their  years  to  write  almost  daily,  and  sometimes  in 
terms  too  ambiguous,  sometimes  in  terms  too  plain, 
and  generally  in  terms  too  warm,  for  mere  acquaint- 
ance. The  exercise  partakes  a  little  of  the  nature  of 
battering,  and  danger  may  be  apprehended  when  next 
they  meet.  It  is  difficult  to  give  any  account  of  this 
remarkable  correspondence  ;  it  is  too  far  away  from 
us,  and  perhaps,  not  yet  far  enough,  in  point  of  time 
and  manner ;  the  imagination  is  baffled  by  these 
stilted  literary  utterances,  warming,  in  bravura  passages, 
into  downright  truculent  nonsense.  Clarinda  has  one 
famous  sentence  in  which  she  bids  Sylvander  connect 
the  thought  of  his  mistress  with  the  changing  phases 
of  the  year  ;  it  was  enthusiastically  admired  by  the 
swain,  but  on  the  modern  mind  produces  mild  amaze- 
ment and  alarm.  "  Oh,  Clarinda,"  writes  Burns, 
"  shall  we  not  meet  in  a  state — some  yet  unknown 
state — of  being,  where  the  lavish  hand  of  Plenty  shall 
minister  to  the  highest  wish  of  Benevolence,  and 
where  the  chill   north  wind  of  Prudence  shall  never 


84        SOME  ASPECTS  OF  ROBERT  BURNS. 

blow  over  the  flowery  field  of  Enjoyment  ?"  The 
design  may  be  that  of  an  Old  Hawk,  but  the  style  is 
more  suggestive  of  a  Bird  of  Paradise.  It  is  some- 
times hard  to  fancy  they  are  not  gravely  making  fun 
of  each  other  as  they  write.  Religion,  poetr}',  love, 
and  charming  sensibility,  are  the  current  topics.  ' '  I 
am  delighted,  charming  Clarinda,  with  your  honest 
enthusiasm  for  religion,"  writes  Burns  ;  and  the  pair 
entertained  a  fiction  that  this  was  their  "  favorite  sub- 
ject." "This  is  Sunday,"  writes  the  lady,  "and 
not  a  word  on  our  favorite  subject.  O  fy  !  '  divine 
Clarinda  1  '  "  1  suspect,  although  quite  unconsciously 
on  the  part  of  the  lady,  who  was  bent  on  his  redemp- 
tion, they  but  used  the  favorite  subject  as  a  stalking- 
horse.  In  the  meantime,  the  sportive  acquaintance 
was  ripening  steadily  into  a  genuine  passion.  Visits 
took  place,  and  then  became  frequent.  Clarinda' s 
friends  were  hurt  and  suspicious  ;  her  clergyman  in- 
terfered ;  she  herself  had  smart  attacks  of  conscience  ; 
but  her  heart  had  gone  from  her  control  ;  it  was  alto- 
gether his,  and  she  "  counted  all  things  but  loss — 
heaven  excepted — that  she  might  win  and  keep  him." 
Burns  himself  was  transported  while  in  her  neighbor- 
hood, but  his  transports  somewhat  rapidly  declined 
during  an  absence.  I  am  tempted  to  imagine  that, 
womanlike,  he  took  on  the  color  of  his  mistress's  feel- 
ing ;  that  he  could  not  but  heat  himself  at  the  fire  of 
her  unaffected  passion  ;  but  that,  like  one  who  should 
leave  the  hearth  upon  a  winter's  night,  his  temperature 
soon  fell  when  he  was  out  of  sight,  and   in  a  word, 


SOME  ASPECTS  OF  ROBERT  BURNS.        85 

though  he  could  share  the  symptoms,  that  he  had 
never  shared  the  disease.  At  the  same  time,  amid 
the  fustian  of  the  letters  there  are  forcible  and  true  ex- 
pressions, and  the  love  verses  that  he  wrote  upon 
Clarmda  are  among  the  most  moving  in  the  language. 
We  are  approaching  the  solution.  In  mid-winter, 
Jean  once  more  in  the  family  way,  was  turned  out  of 
doors  by  her  family  ;  and  Burns  had  her  received  and 
cared  for  m  the  house  of  a  friend.  For  he  remained 
to  the  last  imperfect  in  his  character  of  Don  Juan, 
and  lacked  the  sinister  courage  to  desert  his  victim. 
About  the  middle  of  February  (1788),  he  had  to  tear 
himself  from  his  Clarinda  and  make  a  journey  into 
the  south  west  on  business.  Clarinda  gave  him  two 
shirts  for  his  little  son.  They  were  daily  to  meet  in 
prayer  at  an  appointed  hour.  Burns,  too  late  for  the 
post  at  Glasgow,  sent  her  a  letter  by  parcel  that  she 
might  not  have  to  wait.  Clarinda  on  her  part  writes, 
this  time  with  a  beautiful  simplicity  :  "  I  think  the 
streets  look  deserted-like  since  Monday  ;  and  there's 
a  certain  insipidity  in  good  kind  folks  I  once  enjoyed 
not  a  little.  INIiss  Wardrobe  supped  here  on  Monday. 
She  once  named  you,  which  kept  me  from  falling 
asleep.  I  drank  your  health  in  a  glass  of  ale — as  the 
lasses  do  at  Hallowe'en — '  in  to  mysel'.'  "  Arrived 
at  Mauchline,  Burns  installed  jean  Armour  in  a  lodg- 
ing, and  prevailed  on  Mrs.  Armour  to  promise  her 
help  and  countenance  in  the  approaching  confine- 
ment. This  was  kind  at  least ;  but  hear  his  expres- 
sions :   "  I  have  taken  her  a  room  :  I  have  taken  her 


86        SOME  ASPECTS  OF  ROBERT  BUR  MS. 

to  my  arms  ;  I  have  given  her  a  mahogany  bed  ;  I 
have  given  her  a  guinea.  ...  I  swore  her  privately 
and  solemnly  never  to  attempt  any  claim  on  me  as  a 
husband,  even  though  anybody  should  persuade  her 
she  had  such  a  claim — which  she  has  not,  neither 
during  my  life  nor  after  my  death.  She  did  all  this 
like  a  good  girl."  And  then  he  took  advantage  ot 
the  situation.  To  Clarinda  he  wrote  :  "  I  this  morn- 
ing called  for  a  certain  woman.  I  am  disgusted 
with  her;  I  cannot  endure  her;"  and  he  accused 
her  of  "tasteless  insipidity,  vulgarity  of  soul,  and 
mercenary  fawning."  This  was  already  in  INIarch  ; 
by  the  13th  of  that  month  he  was  back  in  Edin- 
burgh. On  the  17th  he  wrote  to  Clarinda  :  "  Your 
hopes,  your  fears,  your  cares,  my  love,  are  mine  ;  so 
don't  mind  them.  I  will  take  you  in  my  hand  through 
the  dreary  wilds  of  this  world,  and  scare  away  the 
ravening  bird  or  beast  that  would  annoy  you." 
Again,  on  the  21st  :  "  Will  you  open,  with  satisfac- 
tion and  delight,  a  letter  from  a  man  who  loves  you, 
who  has  loved  you,  and  who  will  love  you,  to  death, 
through  death,  and  for  ever.  ,  .  .  How  rich  am  I  to 
have  such  a  treasure  as  you  !  .  .  .  '  The  Lord  God 
knoweth,'  and,  perhaps,  '  Israel  he  shall  know,'  my 
love  and  your  merit.  Adieu,  Clarinda  !  I  am  going 
to  remember  you  in  my  prayers."  By  the  7th  of 
April,  seventeen  days  later,  he  had  already  decided  to 
make  Jean  Armour  publicly  his  wife. 

A  more  astonishing  stage-trick  is  not  to  be  found. 
And  yet  his  conduct  is  seen,  upon  a  nearer  examina- 


SOME  ASPECTS  OF  ROBERT  BURNS.        87 

tion,  to  be  grounded  both  in  reason  and  in  kindness. 
He  was  now  about  to  embarlc  on  a  solid  worldly 
career  ;  he  had  taken  a  farm  ;  the  affair  with  Clarinda, 
however  gratifying  to  his  heart,  was  too  contingent  to 
offer  any  great  consolation  to  a  man  like  Burns,  to 
whom  marriage  must  have  seemed  the  very  dawn  of 
hope  and  self-respect.  This  is  to  regard  the  question 
from  its  lowest  aspect  ;  but  there  is  no  doubt  that  he 
entered  on  this  new  period  of  his  life  with  a  sincere 
determination  to  do  right.  He  had  just  helped  his 
brother  with  a  loan  of  a  hundred  and  eighty  pounds  ; 
should  he  do  nothing  for  the  poor  girl  whom  he  had 
ruined  ?  It  was  true  he  could  not  do  as  he  did  with- 
out brutally  wounding  Clarinda  ;  that  was  the  punish- 
ment of  his  bygone  fault ;  he  was,  as  he  truly  says, 
"  damned  with  a  choice  only  of  different  species  of 
error  and  misconduct."  To  be  professional  Don 
Juan,  to  accept  the  provocation  of  any  lively  lass  upon 
the  village  green,  may  thus  lead  a  man  through  a 
series  of  detestable  words  and  actions,  and  land  him 
at  last  in  an  undesired  and  most  unsuitable  union  for 
life.  If  he  had  been  strong  enough  to  refrain  or  bad 
enough  to  persevere  in  evil  ;  if  he  had  only  not  been 
Don  Juan  at  all,  or  been  Don  Juan  altogether,  there 
had  been  some  possible  road  for  him  throughout  this 
troublesome  world  ;  but  a  man,  alas  !  who  is  equally  at 
the  call  of  his  worse  and  better  instincts,  stands  among 
changing  events  without  foundation  or  resource. ' 

1  For  the  love  affairs  see,  in  particular,  Mr.  Scott  Douglas's  edition  un- 
der the  different  dates. 


88        SOME  ASPECTS  OF  ROBERT  BURNS. 

Downward  Course. 

It  may  be  questionable  whether  any  marriage  could 
have  tamed  Burns  ;  but  it  is  at  least  certain  that  there 
was  no  hope  for  him  in  the  marriage  he  contracted. 
He  did  right,  but  then  he  had  done  wrong  before  ;  it 
was,  as  I  said,  one  of  those  relations  in  life  which  it 
seems  equally  wrong  to  break  or  to  perpetuate.  He 
neither  loved  nor  respected  his  wife.  "  God  knows," 
he  writes,  "  my  choice  was  as  random  as  blind  man's 
buff."  He  consoles  himself  by  the  thought  that  he 
has  acted  kindly  to  her  ;  that  she  "  has  the  most 
sacred  enthusiasm  of  attachment  to  him  ;"  that  she 
has  a  good  figure  ;  that  she  has  a  "  wood -note  wild," 
"  her  voice  rising  with  ease  to  B  natural,"  no  less. 
The  effect  on  the  reader  is  one  of  unmingled  pity  for 
both  parties  concerned.  This  was  not  the  wife  who 
(in  his  own  words)  could  "enter  into  his  favorite 
studies  or  relish  his  favorite  authors;"  this  was  not 
even  a  wife,  after  the  affair  of  the  marriage  lines,  in 
whom  a  husband  could  joy  to  place  his  trust.  Let 
her  manage  a  farm  with  sense,  let  her  voice  rise  to  B 
natural  all  day  long,  she  would  still  be  a  peasant  to 
her  lettered  lord,  and  an  object  of  pity  rather  than  of 
equal  affection.  She  could  now  be  faithful,  she  could 
now  be  forgiving,  she  could  now  be  generous  even  to 
a  pathetic  and  touching  degree  ;  but  coming  from 
one  who  was  unloved,  and  who  had  scarce  shown  her- 
self worthy  of  the  sentiment,  these  were  all  virtues 
thrown  away,  which  could  neither  change  her  hus- 


SOME  ASPECTS  OF  ROBERT  BURNS.         89 

band's  heart  nor  affect  the  inherent  destiny  of  their 
relation.  From  the  outset,  it  was  a  marriage  that  had 
no  root  in  nature  ;  and  we  find  him,  erelong,  lyri- 
cally regretting  Highland  Mary,  renewing  correspond- 
ence with  Clarinda  in  the  warmest  language,  on 
doubtful  terms  with  Mrs.  Riddel,  and  on  terms  unfor- 
tunately beyond  any  question  with  Anne  Park. 

Alas  !  this  was  not  the  only  ill  circumstance  in  his 
future.  He  had  been  idle  for  some  eighteen  months, 
superintending  his  new  edition,  hanging  on  to  settle 
with  the  publisher,  travelling  in  the  Highlands  with 
Willie  Nichol,  or  philandering  with  Mrs.  M'Lehose  ; 
and  in  this  period  the  radical  part  of  the  man  had 
suffered  irremediable  hurt.  He  had  lost  his  habits  of 
industry,  and  formed  the  habit  of  pleasure.  Apolo- 
getical  biographers  assure  us  of  the  contrary  ;  but 
from  the  first,  he  saw  and  recognized  the  danger  for 
himself ;  his  mind,  he  writes,  is  "  enervated  to  an 
alarming  degree"  by  idleness  and  dissipation  ;  and 
again,  "  my  mind  has  been  vitiated  with  idleness." 
It  never  fairly  recovered.  To  business  he  could 
bring  the  required  diligence  and  attention  without  dif- 
ficulty ;  but  he  was  thenceforward  incapable,  except 
in  rare  instances,  of  that  superior  effort  of  concentra- 
tion which  is  required  for  serious  literary  work.  He 
may  be  said,  indeed,  to  have  worked  no  more,  and 
onl)^  amused  himself  with  letters.  The  man  who  had 
written  a  volume  of  m.asterpieces  in  six  months,  during 
the  remainder  of  his  life  rarely  found  courage  for  any 
more  sustained   effort  than  a  song.     And  the  nature 


go        SOME  ASPECTS  OF  ROBERT  BURNb. 

of  the  songs  is  itself  characteristic  of  these  idle  later 
years  ;  for  they  are  often  as  polished  and  elaborate  as 
his  earlier  works  were  frank,  and  headlong,  and  col- 
loquial ;  and  this  sort  of  verbal  elaboration  in  short 
flights  is,  for  a  man  of  literary  turn,  simply  the  most 
agreeable  of  pastimes.  The  change  in  manner  co- 
incides exactly  with  the  Edinburgh  visit.  In  1786  he 
had  written  the  Address  to  a  Louse,  which  may  be 
taken  as  an  extreme  instance  of  the  first  manner  ;  and 
already,  in  1787,  we  come  upon  the  rosebud  pieces  to 
jMiss  Cruikshank,  which  are  extreme  examples  of  the 
second.  The  change  was,  therefore,  the  direct  and 
very  natural  consequence  of  his  great  change  in  life  ; 
but  it  is  not  the  less  typical  of  his  loss  of  moral  cour- 
age that  he  should  have  given  up  all  larger  ventures, 
nor  the  less  melancholy  that  a  man  who  first  attacked 
literature  with  a  hand  that  seemed  capable  of  moving 
mountains,  should  have  spent  his  later  years  in  whit- 
tling cherry-stones. 

Meanwhile,  the  farm  did  not  prosper  ;  he  had  to 
join  to  it  the  salary  of  an  exciseman  ;  at  last  he  had 
to  give  it  up,  and  rely  altogether  on  the  latter  resource. 
He  was  an  active  officer  ;  and,  though  he  sometimes 
tempered  severity  with  mercy,  we  have  local  testimony 
oddly  representing  the  public  feeling  of  the  period, 
that,  while  "  in  ever}-thing  else  he  was  a  perfect 
gentleman,  when  he  met  with  anything  seizable  he  was 
no  better  than  any  other  ganger." 

There  is  but  one  manifestation  of  the  man  in  these 
last  years  which  need  delay  us  :  and  that  was  the  sud- 


SOME  ASPECTS  OF  ROBERT  BURNS.        91 

den  interest  in  politics  which  arose  from  his  sympathy 
with  the  great  French  Revolution.  His  only  political 
feeling  had  been  hitherto  a  sentimental  Jacobitism,  not 
more  or  less  respectable  than  that  of  Scott,  Aytoun, 
and  the  rest  of  what  George  Borrow  has  nicknamed 
the  "  Charlie  over  the  water"  Scotchmen.  It  was  a 
sentiment  almost  entirely  literary  and  picturesque  in 
its  origin,  built  on  ballads  and  the  adventures  of  the 
Young  Chevalier  ;  and  in  Burns  it  is  the  more  ex- 
cusable, because  he  lay  out  of  the  way  of  active  poli- 
tics in  his  youth.  With  the  great  French  Revolution, 
something  living,  practical,  and  feasible  appeared  to 
him  for  the  first  time  in  this  realm  of  human  action. 
The  young  ploughman  who  had  desired  so  earnestly 
to  rise,  now  reached  out  his  sympathies  to  a  whole 
nation  animated  with  the  same  desire.  Already  in 
1788  we  find  the  old  Jacobitism  hand  in  hand  with 
the  new  popular  doctrine,  when,  in  0  letter  of  indig- 
nation against  the  zeal  of  a  Whig  clergyman,  he 
writes  :  "  I  dare  say  the  American  Congress  in  1776 
will  be  allowed  to  be  as  able  and  as  enlightened  as  the 
English  Convention  was  in  1688  ;  and  that  their  pos- 
terity will  celebrate  the  centenary  of  their  deliverance 
from  us,  as  duly  and  sincerely  as  we  do  ours  from  the 
oppressive  measures  of  the  wrong-headed  house  of 
Stuart."  As  time  wore  on,  his  sentiments  grew  more 
pronounced  and  even  violent ;  but  there  was  a  basis 
of  sense  and  generous  feeling  to  his  hottest  excess. 
What  he  asked  was  a  fair  chance  for  the  individual  in 
life  ;  an  open  road  to  success  and  distinction  for  all 


92         SOME  ASPECTS  OF  ROBERT  BURNS. 

classes  of  men.  It  was  in  the  same  spirit  that  he  had 
helped  to  found  a  pubHc  Hbrary  in  the  parish  where 
his  farm  was  situated,  and  that  he  sang  his  fervent 
snatches  against  tyranny  and  tyrants.  Witness,  were 
it  alone,  this  verse  : — 

"  Here's  freedom  to  him  that  wad  read, 
Here's  freedom  to  him  that  wad  write ; 
There's  nane  ever  feared  that  the  truth  should  be  heard 
But  them  wham  the  truth  wad  indite." 

Yet  his  enthusiasm  for  the  cause  was  scarce  guided  by 
wisdom.  Many  stories  are  preserved  of  the  bitter  and 
unwise  words  he  used  in  country  coteries  ;  how  he 
proposed  Washington's  health  as  an  amendment  to 
Pitt's,  gave  as  a  toast  "  the  last  verse  of  the  last  chap- 
ter of  Kings,"  and  celebrated  Dumouriez  in  a  dog- 
grel  impromptu  full  of  ridicule  and  hate.  Now  his 
sympathies  would  inspire  him  with  Scots,  ivha  hae  ; 
now  involve  him  in  a  drunken  broil  with  a  loyal 
officer,  and  consequent  apologies  and  explanations, 
hard  to  offer  for  a  man  of  Burns' s  stomach.  Nor  was 
this  the  front  of  his  offending.  On  February  z'], 
1792,  he  took  part  in  the  capture  of  an  armed  smug- 
gler, bought  at  the  subsequent  sale  four  carronades, 
and  despatched  them  with  a  letter  to  the  French  As- 
sembly. Letter  and  guns  were  stopped  at  Dover  by 
the  English  officials  ;  there  was  trouble  for  Burns  with 
his  superiors  ;  he  was  reminded  firmly,  however  deli- 
cately, that,  as  a  paid  official,  it  was  his  duty  to  obey 
and  to  be  silent ;  and  all  the  blood  of  this  poor, 
proud,  and  falling  man  must  have  rushed  to  his  head 


SOME  ASPECTS  OF  ROBERT  BURNS.         93 

at  the  humiliation.  His  letter  to  INIr.  Erskine,  subse- 
quently Earl  of  Mar,  testifies,  in  its  turgid,  turbulent 
phrases,  to  a  perfect  passion  of  alarmed  self-respect 
and  vanity.  He  had  been  muzzled,  and  muzzled, 
when  all  was  said,  by  his  paltry  salary  as  an  excise- 
man ;  alas  !  had  he  not  a  family  to  keep  .?  Already, 
he  wrote,  he  looked  forward  to  some  such  judgment 
from  a  hackney  scribbler  as  this  :  "Burns,  notwith- 
standing i\\Q  faiifaronnade  of  independence  to  be  found 
in  his  works,  and  after  having  been  held  forth  to  view 
and  to  public  estimation  as  a  man  of  some  genius, 
yet,  quite  destitute  of  resources  within  himself  to  sup- 
port his  borrowed  dignity,  he  dwindled  into  a  paltry 
exciseman,  and  shrunk  out  the  rest  of  his  insignificant 
existence  in  the  meanest  of  pursuits,  and  among  the 
vilest  of  mankind."  And  then  on  he  goes,  in  a  style 
of  rhodomontade,  but  filled  with  living  indignation, 
to  declare  his  right  to  a  political  opinion,  and  his  will- 
ingness to  shed  his  blood  for  the  political  birthright  of 
his  sons.  Poor,  perturbed  spirit  !  he  was  indeed  ex- 
ercised in  vain  ;  those  who  share  and  those  who  differ 
from  his  sentiments  about  the  Revolution,  alike  un- 
derstand and  sympathize  with  him  in  this  painful 
strait ;  for  poetry  and  human  manhood  are  lasting  like 
the  race,  and  politics,  which  are  but  a  wrongful  striv- 
ing after  right,  pass  and  change  from  year  to  year  and 
age  to  age.  The  Twa  Dogs  has  already  outlasted 
the  constitution  of  Sieyesand  the  policy  of  the  Whigs  ; 
and  Burns  is  better  known  among  English-speaking 
races  than  either  Pitt  or  Fox. 


94        SOME  ASPECTS  OF  ROBERT  BURNS. 

Meanwhile,  whether  as  a  man,  a  husband,  or  a 
poet,  his  steps  led  downward.  He  knew,  knew  bit- 
terly, that  the  best  was  out  of  him  ;  he  refused  to 
make  another  volume,  for  he  felt  that  it  would  be  a 
disappointment  ;  he  grew  petulantly  alive  to  criticism, 
unless  he  was  sure  it  reached  him  from  a  friend.  For 
his  songs,  he  would  take  nothing  ;  they  were  all  that 
he  could  do  ;  the  proposed  Scotch  play,  the  proposed 
series  of  Scotch  tales  in  verse,  all  had  gone  to  water  ; 
and  in  a  fling  of  pain  and  disappointment,  which  is 
surely  noble  with  the  nobility  of  a  viking,  he  would 
rather  stoop  to  borrow  than  to  accept  money  for  these 
last  and  inadequate  efforts  of  his  muse.  And  this  des- 
perate abnegation  rises  at  times  near  to  the  height  of 
madness  ;  as  when  he  pretended  that  he  had  not  writ- 
ten, but  only  found  and  published,  his  immortal  Auld 
Lafig  Syne.  In  the  same  spirit  he  became  more 
scrupulous  as  an  artist ;  he  was  doing  so  little,  he 
would  fain  do  that  little  well  ;  and  about  two  months 
before  his  death,  he  asked  Thomson  to  send  back  all 
his  manuscripts  for  revisal,  sajing  that  he  would  rather 
write  five  songs  to  his  taste  than  twice  that  number 
otherwise.  The  battle  of  his  life  was  lost  ;  in  forlorn 
efforts  to  do  well,  in  desperate  submissions  to  evil,  the 
last  years  flew  by.  His  temper  is  dark  and  explosive, 
launching  epigrams,  quarrelling  with  his  friends,  jeal- 
ous of  young  puppy  officers.  He  tries  to  be  a  good 
father  ;  he  boasts  himself  a  libertine.  Sick,  sad,  and 
jaded,  he  can  refuse  no  occasion  of  temporary  pleas- 
ure, no  opportunity  to  shine  ;  and  he  who  had  once 


SOME  A  SPE  C  TS  OF  R  OBER  T  B  URXS.        9  5 

refused  the  invitations  of  lords  and  ladies  is  now 
whistled  to  the  inn  by  any  curious  stranger.  His 
death  (July  21,  1796),  in  his  thirty-seventh  year,  was 
indeed  a  kindly  dispensation.  It  is  the  fashion  to  say 
he  died  of  drink  ;  many  a  man  has  drunk  more  and 
yet  lived  with  reputation,  and  reached  a  good  age. 
That  drink  and  debauchery  helped  to  destroy  his  con- 
stitution,  and  were  the  means  of  his  unconscious  sui- 
cide, is  doubtless  true  ;  but  he  had  failed  in  life,  had 
lost  his  power  of  work,  and  was  already  married  to  the 
poor,  unworthy,  patient  Jean,  before  he  had  shown 
his  inclination  to  convivial  nights,  or  at  least  before 
that  inclination  had  become  dangerous  either  to  his 
health  or  his  self-respect.  He  had  trifled  with  life, 
and  must  pay  the  penalty.  He  had  chosen  to  be  Don 
Juan,  he  had  grasped  at  temporary  pleasures,  and  sub- 
stantial happiness  and  solid  industry  had  passed  him 
by.  He  died  of  being  Robert  Burns,  and  there  is  no 
levity  in  such  a  statement  of  the  case  ;  for  shall  we 
not,  one  and  all,  deserve  a  similar  epitaph  ? 

Works. 

The  somewhat  cruel  necessity  which  has  lain  upon 
me  throughout  this  paper  only  to  touch  upon  those 
points  in  the  life  of  Burns  where  correction  or  ampli- 
fication seemed  desirable,  leaves  me  little  opportunity 
to  speak  of  the  works  which  have  made  his  name  so 
famous.  Yet,  even  here,  a  few  observations  seem 
necessary. 

At  the  time  when  the  poet  madeliis  appearance  and 


9  6        SOME  A  SPE  CTS  OF  R  OBER  T  B  URNS. 

great  first  success,  his  work  was  remarkable  in  two 
ways.  For,  first,  in  an  age  when  poetry  had  become 
abstract  and  conventional,  instead  of  continuing  to 
deal  with  shepherds,  thunderstorms,  and  personifica- 
tions, he  dealt  with  the  actual  circumstances  of  his  life, 
however  matter-of-fact  and  sordid  these  might  be. 
And,  second,  in  a  time  when  English  versification  was 
particularly  stiff,  lame,  and  feeble,  and  words  were 
used  with  ultra-academical  timidity,  he  wrote  verses 
that  were  easy,  racy,  graphic,  and  forcible,  and  used 
language  with  absolute  tact  and  courage  as  it  seemed 
most  fit  to  give  a  clear  impression.  If  you  take  even 
those  English  authors  whom  we  know  Burns  to  have 
most  admired  and  studied,  you  will  see  at  once  that 
he  owed  them  nothing  but  a  warning.  Take  Shen- 
stone,  for  instance,  and  watch  that  elegant  author  as 
he  tries  to  grapple  with  the  facts  of  life.  He  has  a 
description,  I  remember,  of  a  gentleman  engaged  in 
sliding  or  walking  on  thin  ice,  which  is  a  little  miracle 
of  incompetence.  You  see  my  memory  fails  me,  and 
I  positively  cannot  recollect  whether  his  hero  was  slid- 
ing or  walking  ;  as  though  a  writer  should  describe 
a  skirmish,  and  the  reader,  at  the  end,  be  still  uncer- 
tain whether  it  were  a  charge  of  cavalry  or  a  slow  and 
stubborn  advance  of  foot.  There  could  be  no  such 
ambiguity  in  Burns  ;  his  work  is  at  the  opposite  pole 
from  such  indefinite  and  stammering  performances  ; 
and  a  whole  lifetime  passed  in  the  study  of  Shenstone 
would  only  lead  a  man  farther  and  farther  from  writ- 
ing ihe  Address  io  a  Louse.      Yet  Burns,    like  most 


SOME  ASPECTS  OF  ROBERT  BURNS.        97 

great  artists,  proceeded  from  a  school  and  continued  a 
tradition  ;  only  the  school  and  tradition  were  Scotch, 
and  not  English.  While  the  English  language  was 
becoming  daily  more  pedantic  and  inflexible,  and 
English  letters  more  colorless  and  slack,  there  was  an- 
other dialect  in  the  sister  countrj^,  and  a  different 
school  of  poetry  tracing  its  descent,  through  King 
James  I.,  from  Chaucer.  The  dialect  alone  accounts 
for  much  ;  for  it  was  then  written  colloquially,  which 
kept  it  fresh  and  supple  ;  and,  although  not  shaped 
for  heroic  flights,  it  was  a  direct  and  vivid  medium  for 
all  that  had  to  do  with  social  life.  Hence,  whenever 
Scotch  poets  left  their  laborious  imitations  of  bad 
English  verses,  and  fell  back  on  their  own  dialect, 
their  style  would  kindle,  and  they  would  write  of  their 
convivial  and  somewhat  gross  existences  with  pith  and 
point.  In  Ramsay,  and  far  more  in  the  poor  lad 
Fergusson,  there  was  mettle,  humor,  literary  courage, 
and  a  power  of  saying  what  they  wished  to  say  defi- 
nitely and  brightly,  which  in  the  latter  case  should 
have  justified  great  anticipations.  Had  Burns  died  at 
the  same  age  as  Fergusson,  he  would  have  left  us  lit- 
erally nothing  worth  remark.  To  Ramsay  and  to 
F'ergusson,  then,  he  was  indebted  in  a  v&xy  uncom- 
mon degree,  not  only  following  their  tradition  and 
using  their  measures,  but  directly  and  avowedly  imi- 
tating their  pieces.  The  same  tendency  to  borrow  a 
hint,  to  work  on  some  one  else's  foundation,  is  not- 
able in  Burns  from  first  to  last,  in  the  period  of  song- 
writing  as  well  as  in  that  of  the  early  poems  ;  and 


9 8        SOME  A SPE C TS  OF  ROBERT  B URNS. 

Strikes  one  oddly  in  a  man  of  such  deep  originality, 
who  left  so  strong  a  print  on  all  he  touched,  and  whose 
work  is  so  greatly  distinguished  by  that  character  of 
"  inevitability"  which  Wordsworth  denied  to  Goethe. 

When  we  remember  Burns' s  obligations  to  his  pred- 
ecessors, we  must  never  forget  his  immense  advances 
on  them.  They  had  already  "  discovered  "  nature  ; 
but  Burns  discovered  poetry — a  higher  and  more  in- 
tense way  of  thinking  of  the  things  that  go  to  make 
up  nature,  a  higher  and  more  ideal  key  of  words  in 
which  to  speak  of  them.  Ram.say  and  Fergusson  ex- 
celled at  making  a  popular — or  shall  we  say  vulgar  .? 
— sort  of  society  verses,  comical  and  prosaic,  written, 
you  would  say,  in  taverns  while  a  supper  party  waited 
for  its  laureate's  word  ;  but  on  the  appearance  of 
Burns,  this  coarse  and  laughing  literature  was  touched 
to  finer  issues,  and  learned  gravity  of  thought  and 
natural  pathos. 

What  he  had  gained  from  his  predecessors  was  a 
direct,  speaking  style,  and  to  walk  on  his  own  feet  in- 
stead of  on  academical  stilts.  There  was  never  a  man 
of  letters  with  more  absolute  command  of  his  means  ; 
and  we  may  say  of  him,  without  excess,  that  his  style 
was  his  slave.  Hence  that  energy  of  epithet,  so  con- 
cise and  telling,  that  a  foreigner  is  tempted  to  explain 
it  by  some  special  richness  or  aptitude  in  the  dialect 
he  wrote.  Hence  that  Homeric  justice  and  complete- 
ness of  description  which  gives  us  the  very  physiog- 
nomy of  nature,  in  body  and  detail,  as  nature  is. 
Hence,  too,  the  unbroken  literary  quality  of  his  best 


I 


SOME  A  SPE  CTS  OF  R  OBER  T  B  URNS.         9  9 

pieces,  which  keeps  him  from  any  sHp  into  the  weari- 
ful trade  of  word-painting,  and  presents  everything,  as 
everything  should  be  presented  by  the  art  of  words,  in 
a  clear,  continuous  medium  of  thought.  Principal 
Shairp,  for  instance,  gives  us  a  paraphrase  of  one 
tough  verse  of  the  original  ;  and  for  those  who  know 
the  Greek  poets  only  by  paraphrase,  this  has  the  very 
quality  they  are  accustomed  to  look  for  and  admire  in 
Greek.  The  contemporaries  of  Burns  were  surprised 
that  he  should  visit  so  many  celebrated  mountains  and 
waterfalls,  and  not  seize  the  opportunity  to  make  a 
poem.  Indeed,  it  is  not  for  those  who  have  a  true 
command  of  the  art  of  words,  but  for  peddling,  pro- 
fessional amateurs,  that  these  pointed  occasions  are 
most  useful  and  inspiring.  As  those  who  speak  French 
imperfectly  are  glad  to  dwell  on  any  topic  they  may 
have  talked  upon  or  heard  others  talk  upon  before, 
because  they  know  appropriate  words  for  it  in  French, 
so  the  dabbler  in  verse  rejoices  to  behold  a  waterfall, 
because  he  has  learned  the  sentiment  and  knows  ap- 
propriate words  for  it  in  poetry.  But  the  dialect  of 
Burns  was  fitted  to  deal  with  any  subject ;  and  whether 
it  was  a  stormy  night,  a  shepherd's  collie,  a  sheep 
struggling  in  the  snow,  the  conduct  of  cowardly  sol- 
diers in  the  field,  the  gait  and  cogitations  of  a  drunken 
man,  or  only  a  village  cockcrow  in  the  morning,  he 
could  find  language  to  give  it  freshness,  body,  and  re- 
lief. He  was  always  ready  to  borrow  the  hint  of  a 
design,  as  though  he  had  a  difficulty  in  commencing 
— a  difficulty,  let  us  say,  in  choosing  a  subject  out  of 


1  oo      SOME  A  SPECTS  OF  ROBER  T  B  URNS. 

a  world  which  seemed  all  equally  living  and  signifi- 
cant to  him  ;  but  once  he  had  the  subject  chosen,  he 
could  cope  with  nature  single-handed,  and  make  every 
stroke  a  triumph.  Again,  his  absolute  mastery  in  his 
art  enabled  him  to  express  each  and  all  of  his  differ- 
ent humors,  and  to  pass  smoothly  and  congruously 
from  one  to  another.  Many  men  invent  a  dialect  for 
only  one  side  of  their  nature — perhaps  their  pathos 
or  their  humor,  or  the  delicacy  of  their  senses— and, 
for  lack  of  a  medium,  leave  all  the  others  unexpressed. 
You  meet  such  an  one,  and  find  him  in  conversation 
full  of  thought,  feeling,  and  experience,  which  he  has 
lacked  the  art  to  employ  in  his  writings.  But  Burns 
was  not  thus  hampered  in  the  practice  of  the  literary 
art  ;  he  could  throw  the  whole  weight  of  his  nature 
into  his  work,  and  impregnate  it  from  end  to  end.  If 
Doctor  Johnson,  that  stilted  and  accomplished  stylist, 
had  lacked  the  sacred  Boswell,  what  should  we  have 
known  of  him  ?  and  how  should  we  have  delighted  in 
his  acquaintance  as  we  do  }  Those  who  spoke  with 
Burns  tell  us  how  much  we  have  lost  who  did  not. 
But  I  think  they  exaggerate  their  privilege  :  I  think 
we  have  the  whole  Burns  in  our  possession  set  forth 
in  his  consummate  verses. 

It  was  by  his  style,  and  not  by  his  matter,  that  he 
affected  Wordsworth  and  the  world.  There  is,  in- 
deed, only  one  merit  worth  considering  in  a  man  of 
letters — that  he  should  write  well  ;  and  only  one 
damning  fault — that  he  should  write  ill.    We  are  little 


SOME  A SPE CTS  OF  ROBERT  B URNS.      i o i 

the  better  for  the  reflections  of  the  sailor's  parrot  in 
the  story.  And  so,  if  Burns  helped  to  change  the 
course  of  literary  history,  it  was  by  his  frank,  direct, 
and  masterly  utterance,  and  not  by  his  homely  choice 
of  subjects.  That  was  imposed  upon  him,  not  chosen 
upon  a  principle.  He  wrote  from  his  own  experi- 
ence, because  it  was  his  nature  so  to  do,  and  the  tra- 
dition of  the  school  from  which  he  proceeded  was  for- 
tunately not  opposed  to  homely  subjects.  But  to  these 
homely  subjects  he  communicated  the  rich  commen- 
tary of  his  nature  ;  they  were  all  steeped  in  Burns  ; 
and  they  interest  us  not  in  themselves,  but  because 
they  have  been  passed  through  the  spirit  of  so  genuine 
and  vigorous  a  man.  Such  is  the  stamp  of  living  lit- 
erature ;  and  there  was  never  any  more  alive  than 
that  of  Burns. 

What  a  gust  of  sympathy  there  is  in  him  sometimes 
flowing  out  in  byways  hitherto  unused,  upon  mice, 
and  flowers,  and  the  devil  himself ;  sometimes  speak- 
ing plainly  between  human  hearts  ;  sometimes  ring- 
ing out  in  exultation  like  a  peal  of  bells  !  When  we 
compare  the  Farmer' s  Salutaimi  io  his  Auld  Mare 
Maggie,  with  the  clever  and  inhumane  production  of 
half  a  century  earlier,  The  Aidd  Man's  Mare's  dead, 
we  see  in  a  nutshell  the  spirit  of  the  change  introduced 
by  Burns.  And  as  to  its  manner,  who  that  has  read 
it  can  forget  how  the  collie,  Luath,  in  the  Twa  Dogs, 
describes  and  enters  into  the  merry-making  in  the 
cottage .? 


UNIVERSITY  OF  C/ t^  T^ot?nt  \ 
SANTA  BARdAS.A.  COLLEGE  LIBKAKY 


102      SOME  ASPECTS  OF  ROBERT  BURNS. 

"The  luntin'  pipe  an'  sneeshin'  mill, 
Are  handed  round  \vi'  richt  guid  will ; 
The  canty  auld  folks  crackin'  crouse, 
The  young  anes  rantin'  through  the  house — 
My  heart  has  been  sae  fain  to  see  them 
That  I  for  joy  hae  barkit  wi'  them." 

It  was  this  ardent  power  of  sympathy  that  was  fatal  to 
so  many  women,  and,  through  Jean  Armour,  to  him- 
self at  last.  His  humor  comes  from  him  in  a  stream 
so  deep  and  easy  that  I  will  venture  to  call  him  the 
best  of  humorous  poets.  He  turns  about  in  the  midst 
to  utter  a  noble  sentiment  or  a  trenchant  remark  on 
human  life,  and  the  style  changes  and  rises  to  the  oc- 
casion. I  think  it  is  Principal  Shairp  who  says,  hap- 
pily, that  Bums  would  have  been  no  Scotchman  if  he 
had  not  loved  to  moralize  ;  neither,  may  we  add, 
would  he  have  been  his  father's  son  ;  but  (what  is 
worthy  of  note)  his  moralizings  are  to  a  large  extent 
the  moral  of  his  own  career.  He  was  among  the  least 
impersonal  of  artists.  Except  in  the  Jolly  Beggars, 
he  shows  no  gleam  of  dramatic  instinct.  Mr.  Carlyle 
has  complained  that  Tam  o'  Shartter  is,  from  the  ab- 
sence of  this  quality,  only  a  picturesque  and  exter- 
nal piece  of  work  ;  and  I  may  add  that  in  the  Tzva 
Dogs  it  is  precisely  in  the  infringement  of  dramatic 
propriety  that  a  great  deal  of  the  humor  of  the  speeches 
depends  for  its  existence  and  effect.  Indeed,  Bums 
was  so  full  of  his  identity  that  it  breaks  forth  on  every 
page  ;  and  there  is  scarce  an  appropriate  remark  either 
in  praise  or  blame  of  his  own  conduct,  but  he  has  put 


SOME  A SPE CTS  OE  ROBERT  B URNS.      i o 3 

it  himself  into  verse.  Alas  !  for  the  tenor  of  these 
remarks  !  They  are,  indeed,  his  own  pitiful  apology 
for  such  a  marred  existence  and  talents  so  misused 
and  stunted  ;  and  they  seem  to  prove  forever  how 
small  a  part  is  played  by  reason  in  the  conduct  of 
man's  affairs.  Here  was  one,  aj  'east,  who  with  un- 
failing judgment  predicted  his  own  fate  ;  yet  his 
knowledge  could  not  avail  him,  and  with  open  eyes 
he  must  fulfil  his  tragic  destiny.  Ten  years  before  the 
end  he  had  written  his  epitaph  ;  and  neither  subse- 
quent events,  nor  the  critical  eyes  of  posterity,  have 
shown  us  a  word  in  it  to  alter.  And,  lasdy,  has  he 
not  put  in  for  himself  the  last  unanswerable  plea .? — • 

"  Then  gently  scan  your  brother  man. 
Still  gentler  sister  woman  ; 
Though  they  may  gang  a  kennin  wrang, 

To  step  aside  is  human  : 
One  point  must  still  be  greatly  dark " 

One  .?  Alas  !  I  fear  every  man  and  woman  of  us  is 
"  greatly  dark"  to  all  their  neighbors,  from  the  day 
of  birth  until  death  removes  them,  in  their  greatest 
virtues  as  well  as  in  their  saddest  faults  ;  and  we,  who 
have  been  trying  to  read  the  character  of  Burns,  may 
take  home  the  lesson  and  be  gentle  in  our  thoughts. 


WALT   WHITMAN. 

Of  late  years  the  name  of  Walt  Whitman  has  been 
a  good  deal  bandied  about  in  books  and  magazines. 
It  has  become  familiar  both  in  good  and  ill  repute. 
His  works  have  been  largely  bespattered  with  praise 
by  his  admirers,  and  cruelly  mauled  and  mangkd  by 
irreverent  enemies.  Now,  whether  his  poetry  is  good 
or  bad  as  poetry,  is  a  matter  that  may  admit  of  a  dif- 
ference of  opinion  without  alienating  those  who  differ. 
We  could  not  keep  the  peace  with  a  man  who  should 
put  forward  claims  to  taste  and  yet  depreciate  the 
choruses  in  Samson  Agonistes ;  but,  I  think,  we  may 
shake  hands  with  one  who  sees  no  more  in  Walt 
Whitman's  volume,  from  a  literary  point  of  view,  than 
a  farrago  of  incompetent  essays  in  a  wrong  direction. 
That  may  not  be  at  all  our  own  opinion.  We  may 
think  that,  when  a  work  contains  many  unforgettable 
phrases,  it  cannot  be  altogether  devoid  of  literary 
merit.  We  may  even  see  passages  of  a  high  poetry 
here  and  there  among  its  eccentric  contents.  But 
when  all  is  said,  Walt  Whitman  is  neither  a  Milton 
nor  a  Shakespeare  ;  to  appreciate  his  works  is  not  a 
condition  necessar}-  to  salvation  ;  and  I  would  not 
disinherit  a  son   upon  the  question,  nor  even   think 


WALT  WHITMAN.  105 

much   the  worse  of  a  critic,  for  I  should  always  have 
ari  idea  what  he  meant. 

What  Whitman  has  to  say  is  another  affair  from 
how  he  says  it.  It  is  not  possible  to  acquit  any  one 
of  defective  intelligence,  or  else  stiff  prejudice,  who  is 
not  interested  by  Whitman's  matter  and  the  spirit  it 
represents.  Not  as  a  poet,  but  as  what  we  must  call 
(for  lack  of  a  more  exact  expression)  a  prophet,  he 
occupies  a  curious  and  prominent  position.  Whether 
he  may  greatly  influence  the  future  or  not,  he  is  a 
notable  symptom  of  the  present.  As  a  sign  of  the 
times,  it  would  be  hard  to  find  his  parallel.  I  should 
hazard  a  large  wager,  for  instance,  that  he  was  not 
unacquainted  with  the  works  of  Herbert  Spencer  ; 
and  yet  where,  in  all  the  history  books,  shall  we  lay 
our  hands  on  two  more  incongruous  contemporaries  ? 
Mr.  Spencer  so  decorous — I  had  almost  said,  so  dandy 
— in  dissent ;  and  Whitman,  like  a  large  shaggy  dog, 
just  unchained,  scouring  the  beaches  of  the  world  and 
baying  at  the  moon.  And  when  was  an  echo  more 
curiously  like  a  satire,  than  when  Mr.  Spencer  found 
his  Synthetic  Philosophy  reverberated  from  the  other 
shores  of  the  Atlantic  in  the  "  barbaric  yawp"  of 
Whitman  ? 


Whitman,  it  cannot  be  too  soon  explained,  writes 
up  to  a  system.  He  was  a  theorizer  about  society  be- 
fore he  was  a  poet.  He  first  perceived  something 
wanting,  and  then  sat  down  squarely  to  supply  the 


To6  IV ALT  WHITMAN. 

want.  The  reader,  running  over  his  works,  will  find 
that  he  takes  nearly  as  much  pleasure  in  critically  ex- 
pounding his  theory  of  poetry  as  in  making  poems. 
This  is  as  far  as  it  can  be  from  the  case  of  the  spon- 
taneous village  minstrel  dear  to  elegy,  who  has  no 
theory  whatever,  although  sometimes  he  may  have 
fully  as  much  poetry  as  Whitman.  The  whole  of 
Whitman's  work  is  deliberate  and  preconceived.  A 
man  born  into  a  society  comparatively  new,  full  of 
conflicting  elements  and  interests,  could  not  fail,  if  he 
had  any  thoughts  at  all,  to  reflect  upon  the  tendencies 
around  him.  He  saw  much  good  and  evil  on  all 
sides,  not  yet  settled  down  into  some  more  or  less  un- 
just compromise  as  in  older  nations,  but  still  in  the 
act  of  settlement.  And  he  could  not  but  wonder 
what  it  would  turn  out ;  whether  the  compromise 
would  be  very  just  or  very  much  the  reverse,  and  give 
great  or  little  scope  for  healthy  human  energies. 
From  idle  wonder  to  active  speculation  is  but  a  step  ; 
and  he  seems  to  have  been  early  struck  with  the  in- 
efificacy  of  literature  and  its  extreme  unsuitability  to 
the  conditions.  What  he  calls  "  Feudal  Literature" 
could  have  little  living  action  on  the  tumult  of  Ameri- 
can democracy  ;  what  he  calls  the  "  Literature  of 
Wo,"  meaning  the  whole  tribe  of  Werther  and  Byron, 
could  have  no  action  for  good  in  any  time  or  place. 
Both  propositions,  if  art  had  none  but  a  direct  moral 
influence,  would  be  true  enough  ;  and  as  this  seems 
to  be  Whitman's  view,  they  were  true  enough  for 
him.     He  conceived  the  idea  of  a  Literature  which 


WALT  IV HITMAN.  107 

was  to  inhere  in  the  life  of  the  present  ;  which  was  to 
be,  first,  human,  and  next,  American  ;  which  was  to 
be  brave  and  cheerful  as  per  contract  ;  to  give  culture 
in  a  popular  and  poetical  presentment  ;  and,  in  so 
doing,  catch  and  stereotype  some  democratic  ideal  of 
humanity  which  should  be  equally  natural  to  all 
grades  of  wealth  and  education,  and  suited,  in  one  of 
his  favorite  phrases,  to  "  the  average  man,"  To  the 
formation  of  some  such  literature  as  this  his  poems 
are  to  be  regarded  as  so  many  contributions,  one 
sometimes  explaining,  sometimes  superseding,  the 
other  :  and  the  whole  together  not  so  much  a  finished 
work  as  a  body  of  suggestive  hints.  He  does  not 
profess  to  have  built  the  castle,  but  he  pretends  he  has 
traced  the  lines  of  the  foundation.  He  has  not  made 
the  poetry,  but  he  flatters  himself  he  has  done  some- 
thing toward  making  the  poets. 

His  notion  of  the  poetic  function  is  ambitious,  and 
coincides  roughly  with  what  Schopenhauer  has  laid 
down  as  the  province  of  the  metaphysician.  The 
poet  is  to  gather  together  for  men,  and  set  in  order, 
the  materials  of  their  existence.  He  is  "  The  An- 
swerer ;"  he  is  to  find  some  way  of  speaking  about 
life  that  shall  satisfy,  if  only  for  the  moment,  man's 
enduring  astonishment  at  his  own  position.  And  be- 
sides having  an  answer  ready,  it  is  he  who  shall  pro- 
voke the  question.  He  must  shake  people  out  of 
their  indifference,  and  force  them  to  make  some  elec- 
tion in  this  world,  instead  of  sliding  dully  forward  in 
a  dream.     Life  is  a  business  we  are  all  apt  to  mis- 


Io8  WALT  WHITMAN. 

manage  ;  either  living  recklessly  from  day  to  day,  OT 
suffering  ourselves  to  be  gulled  out  of  our  moments 
by  the  inanities  of  custom.  We  should  despise  a  man 
who  gave  as  little  activity  and  forethought  to  the  con- 
duct of  any  other  business.  But  in  this,  which  is  the 
one  thing  of  all  others,  since  it  contains  them  all,  we 
cannot  see  the  forest  for  the  trees.  One  brief  impres- 
sion obliterates  another.  There  is  something  stupe- 
fying in  the  recurrence  of  unimportant  things.  And 
it  is  only  on  rare  provocations  that  we  can  rise  to  take 
an  outlook  beyond  daily  concerns,  and  comprehend 
the  narrow  limits  and  great  possibilities  of  our  exist- 
ence. It  is  the  duty  of  the  poet  to  induce  such  mo- 
ments of  clear  sight.  He  is  the  declared  enemy  of  all 
living  by  reflex  action,  of  all  that  is  done  betwixt  sleep 
and  waking,  of  all  the  pleasureless  pleasurings  and 
imaginary  duties  in  which  we  coin  away  our  hearts 
and  fritter  invaluable  years.  He  has  to  electrify  his 
readers  into  an  instant  unflagging  activity,  founded 
on  a  wide  and  eager  observation  of  the  world,  and 
make  them  direct  their  ways  by  a  superior  prudence, 
which  has  little  or  nothing  in  common  with  the  max- 
ims of  the  copy-book.  That  many  of  us  lead  such 
lives  as  they  would  heartily  disown  after  two  hours' 
serious  reflection  on  the  subject  is,  I  am  afraid,  a 
true,  and,  I  am  sure,  a  very  galling  thought.  The 
Enchanted  Ground  of  dead-alive  respectability  is 
next,  upon  the  map,  to  the  Beulah  of  considerate  vir- 
tue. But  there  they  all  slumber  and  take  their  rest  in 
the  middle  of  God's  beautiful  and  wonderful  universe  ; 


I 


WALT  WHITMAN.  109 

the  drowsy  heads  have  nodded  together  in  the  same 
position  since  first  their  fathers  fell  asleep  ;  and  not 
even  the  sound  of  the  last  trumpet  can  wake  them  to 
a  single  active  thought.  The  poet  has  a  hard  task 
before  him  to  stir  up  such  fellows  to  a  sense  of  their 
own  and  other  people's  principles  in  life. 

And  it  happens  that  literature  is,  in  some  ways,  but 
an  indifferent  means  to  such  an  end.  Language  is 
but  a  poor  bull's-eye  lantern  wherewith  to  show  off 
the  vast  cathedral  of  the  world  ;  and  yet  a  particular 
thing  once  said  in  words  is  so  definite  and  memorable, 
that  it  makes  us  forget  the  absence  of  the  many  which 
remain  unexpressed  ;  like  a  bright  window  in  a  dis- 
tant view,  which  dazzles  and  confuses  our  sight  of  its 
surroundings.  There  are  not  words  enough  in  all 
Shakespeare  to  express  the  merest  fraction  of  a  man's 
experience  in  an  hour.  The  speed  of  the  eyesight 
and  the  hearing,  and  the  continual  industry  of  the 
mind,  produce,  in  ten  minutes,  what  it  would  require 
a  laborious  volume  to  shadow  forth  by  comparisons 
and  roundabout  approaches.  If  verbal  logic  were 
sufficient,  life  would  be  as  plain  sailing  as  a  piece  of 
Euclid.  But,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  we  make  a  travesty 
of  the  simplest  process  of  thought  when  we  put  it  into 
words  ;  for  the  words  aie  all  colored  and  forsworn, 
apply  inaccurately,  and  bring  with  them,  from  former 
uses,  ideas  of  praise  and  blame  that  have  nothing  to 
do  with  the  question  in  hand.  So  we  must  always 
see  to  it  nearly,  that  we  judge  by  the  realities  of  life 
and  not  by  the  partial  terms  that  represent  them  in 


no  IV ALT  IV HITMAN. 

man's  speech  ;  and  at  times  of  choice,  we  must  leave 
words  upon  one  side,  and  act  upon  those  brute  con- 
victions, unexpressed  and  perhaps  inexpressible,  which 
cannot  be  flourished  in  an  argument,  but  which  are 
truly  the  sum  and  fruit  of  our  experience.  Words 
are  for  communication,  not  for  judgment.  This  is 
what  every  thoughtful  man  knows  for  himself,  for  only 
fools  and  silly  schoolmasters  push  definitions  over  far 
into  the  domain  of  conduct ;  and  the  majority  of 
women,  not  learned  in  these  scholastic  refinements, 
live  all-of-a-piece  and  unconsciously,  as  a  tree  grows, 
without  caring  to  put  a  name  upon  their  acts  or  mo- 
tives. Hence,  a  new  difficulty  for  Whitman's  scru- 
pulous and  argumentative  poet ;  he  must  do  more 
than  waken  up  the  sleepers  to  his  words  ;  he  must 
persuade  them  to  look  over  the  book  and  at  life  with 
their  own  eyes. 

This  side  of  truth  is  very  present  to  Whitman  ;  it  is 
this  that  he  means  when  he  tells  us  that  "  To  glance 
with  an  eye  confounds  the  learning  of  all  times," 
But  he  is  not  unready.  He  is  never  weary  of  descant- 
ing on  the  undebatable  conviction  that  is  forced  upon 
our  minds  by  the  presence  of  other  men,  of  animals, 
or  of  inanimate  things.  To  glance  with  an  eye,  were 
it  only  at  a  chair  or  a  park  railing,  is  by  far  a  more 
persuasive  process,  and  brings  us  lo  a  far  more  exact 
conclusion,  than  to  read  the  works  of  all  the  logicians 
extant.  If  both,  by  a  large  allowance,  may  be  said 
to  end  in  certainty,  the  certainty  in  the  one  case  tran- 
scends the  other  to  an  incalculable  degree.     If  people 


WALT  WHITMAN.  Ill 

see  a  lion,  they  run  away  ;  if  they  only  apprehend  a 
deduction,  they  keep  wandering  around  in  an  ex- 
perimental humor.  Now,  how  is  the  poet  to  convince 
like  nature,  and  not  like  books  ?  Is  there  no  actual 
piece  of  nature  that  he  can  show  the  man  to  his  face, 
as  he  might  show  him  a  tree  if  they  were  walking  to- 
gether ?  Yes,  there  is  one  :  the  man's  own  thoughts. 
In  fact,  if  the  poet  is  to  speak  efficaciously,  he  must 
say  what  is  already  in  his  hearer's  mind.  That,  alone, 
the  hearer  will  believe  ;  that,  alone,  he  will  be  able  to 
apply  intelligently  to  the  facts  of  life.  Any  convic- 
tion, even  if  it  be  a  whole  system  or  a  whole  religion, 
must  pass  into  the  condition  of  commonplace,  or  pos- 
tulate, before  it  becomes  fully  operative.  Strange  ex- 
cursions and  high-flying  theories  may  interest,  but 
they  cannot  rule  behavior.  Our  faith  is  not  the  high- 
est truth  that  we  perceive,  but  the  highest  that  we 
have  been  able  to  assimilate  into  the  very  texture  and 
method  of  our  thinking.  It  is  not,  therefore,  by 
flashing  before  a  man's  eyes  the  weapons  of  dialectic  ; 
it  is  not  by  induction,  deduction,  or  construction  ;  it 
is  not  by  forcing  him  on  from  one  stage  of  reasoning 
to  another,  that  the  man  will  be  effectually  renewed. 
He  cannot  be  made  to  believe  anything  ;  but  he  can 
be  made  to  see  that  he  has  always  believed  it.  And 
this  is  the  practical  canon.  It  is  when  the  reader 
cries,  "  Oh,  I  know  !"  and  is,  perhaps,  half  irritated 
to  see  how  nearly  the  author  has  forestalled  his  own 
thoughts,  that  he  is  on  the  way  to  what  is  called  in 
theology  a  Saving  Faith. 


TI2  IV ALT  WHITMAN. 

Here  we  have  the  Icey  to  Whitman's  attitude.  To 
give  a  certain  unity  of  ideal  to  the  average  population 
of  America — to  gather  their  activities  about  some  con- 
ception of  humanity  that  shall  be  central  and  normal, 
if  only  for  the  moment— the  poet  must  portray  that 
population  as  it  is.  Like  human  law,  human  poetry 
is  simply  declaratory.  If  any  ideal  is  possible,  it 
must  be  already  in  the  thoughts  of  the  people  ;  and, 
by  the  same  reason,  in  the  thoughts  of  the  poet,  who 
is  one  of  them.  And  hence  Whitman's  own  formula  : 
' '  The  poet  is  individual — he  is  complete  in  himself  : 
the  others  are  as  good  as  he  ;  only  he  sees  it,  and 
they  do  not."  To  show  them  how  good  they  are, 
the  poet  must  study  his  fellow-countrymen  and  him- 
self somewhat  like  a  traveller  on  the  hunt  for  his  book 
of  travels.  There  is  a  sense,  of  course,  in  which  all 
true  books  are  books  of  travel  ;  and  all  genuine  poets 
must  run  their  risk  of  being  charged  with  the  travel- 
ler's exaggeration  ;  for  to  whom  are  such  books  more 
surprising  than  to  those  whose  own  life  is  faithfully 
and  smartly  pictured  ?  But  this  danger  is  all  upon 
one  side  ;  and  you  may  judiciously  flatter  the  portrait 
without  any  likelihood  of  the  sitter's  disowning  it  for 
a  faithful  likeness.  And  so  Whitman  has  reasoned  : 
that  by  drawing  at  first  hand  from  himself  and  his  neigh- 
bors, accepting  without  shame  the  inconsistencies  and 
brutalities  that  go  to  make  up  man,  and  yet  treating 
the  whole  in  a  high,  magnanimous  spirit,  he  would 
make  sure  of  belief,  and  at  the  same  time  encourage 
people  forward  by  the  means  of  praise. 


IVALT  WHITMAN.  113 

II. 

We  are  accustomed  nowadays  to  a  great  deal  of 
puling  over  the  circumstances  in  which  we  are  placed. 
The  great  refinement  of  many  poetical  gentlemen  has 
rendered  them  practically  unfit  for  the  jostling  and 
ugliness  of  life,  and  they  record  their  unfitness  at  con- 
siderable length.  The  bold  and  awful  poetry  of  Job's 
complaint  produces  too  many  flimsy  imitators  ;  for 
there  is  always  something  consolatory  in  grandeur,  but 
the  symphony  transposed  for  the  piano  becomes  hys- 
terically sad.  This  literature  of  woe,  as  Whitman 
calls  it,  this  Maladie  de  Rene,  as  we  like  to  call  it  in 
Europe,  is  in  many  ways  a  most  humiliating  and 
sickly  phenomenon.  Young  gendemen  with  three  or 
four  hundred  a  year  of  private  means  look  down  from 
a  pinnacle  of  doleful  experience  on  all  the  grown  and 
hearty  men  who  have  dared  to  say  a  good  word  for 
life  since  the  beginning  of  the  world.  There  is  no 
prophet  but  the  melancholy  Jacques,  and  the  blue 
devils  dance  on  all  our  literary  wires. 

It  would  be  a  poor  service  to  spread  culture,  if  this 
be  its  result,  among  the  comparatively  innocent  and 
cheerful  ranks  of  men.  When  our  little  poets  have 
to  be  sent  to  look  at  the  ploughman  and  learn  wis- 
dom, we  must  be  careful  how  we  tamper  with  our 
ploughmen.  Where  a  man  in  not  the  best  of  cir- 
cumstances preserves  composure  of  mind,  and  relishes 
ale  and  tobacco,  and  his  wife  and  children,  in  the  in- 
tervals of  dull  and  unremunerative  labor  ;  where  a 


114  WALT  WHITMAN. 

man  in  this  predicament  can  afford  a  lesson  by  the 
way  to  what  are  called  his  intellectual  superiors,  there 
is  plainly  something  to  be  lost,  as  well  as  something 
to  be  gained,  by  teaching  him  to  think  differently.  It 
is  better  to  leave  him  as  he  is  than  to  teach  him  whin- 
ing. It  is  better  that  he  should  go  without  the  cheer- 
ful lights  of  culture,  if  cheerless  doubt  and  paralyzing 
sentimentalism  are  to  be  the  consequence.  Let  us, 
by  all  means,  fight  against  that  hide-bound  stolidity  of 
sensation  and  sluggishness  of  mind  which  blurs  and 
decolorizes  for  poor  natures  the  wonderful  pageant  of 
consciousness  ;  let  us  teach  people,  as  much  as  we 
can,  to  enjoy,  and  they  will  learn  for  themselves  to 
sympathize  ;  but  let  us  see  to  it,  above  all,  that  we 
give  these  lessons  in  a  brave,  vivacious  note,  and  build 
the  man  up  in  courage  while  we  demolish  its  substi- 
tute, indifference. 

Whitman  is  alive  to  all  this.  He  sees  that,  if  the 
poet  is  to  be  of  any  help,  he  must  testify  to  the  liv- 
ableness  of  life.  His  poems,  he  tells  us,  are  to  be 
"  hymns  of  the  praise  of  things."  They  are  to  make 
for  a  certain  high  joy  in  living,  or  what  he  calls  him- 
self "  a  brave  delight  fit  for  freedom's  athletes."  And 
he  has  had  no  difficulty  in  introducing  his  optimism  : 
it  fitted  readily  enough  with  his  system  ;  for  the  aver- 
age man  is  truly  a  courageous  person  and  truly  fond 
of  living.  One  of  Whitman's  remarks  upon  this  head 
is  worth  quotation,  as  he  is  there  perfectly  successful, 
and  does  precisely  what  he  designs  to  do  throughout  : 
Takes  ordinary  and  even  commonplace  circumstances; 


WALT  WHITMAN.  115 

throws  them  out,  by  a  happy  turn  of  thinking,  into 
significance  and  something  Hke  beauty  ;  and  tacks  a 
hopeful  moral  lesson  to  the  end. 

"The  passionate  tenacity  of  hunters,  woodmen,  early 
risers,  cultivators  of  gardens  and  orchards  and  fields,  he 
says,  the  love  of  healthy  women  for  the  manly  form,  sea- 
faring persons,  drivers  of  horses,  the  passion  for  light  and 
the  open  air, — all  is  an  old  unvaried  sign  of  the  unfailing 
perception  of  beauty,  and  of  a  residence  of  the  poetic  in 
outdoor  people." 

There  seems  to  me  something  truly  original  in 
this  choice  of  trite  examples.  You  will  remark  how 
adroitly  Whitman  begins,  hunters  and  woodmen  being 
confessedly  romantic.  And  one  thing  more.  If  he 
had  said  "  the  love  of  healthy  men  for  the  female 
form,"  he  would  have  said  almost  a  silliness  ;  for  the 
thing  has  never  been  dissembled  out  of  delicacy,  and 
is  so  obvious  as  to  be  a  public  nuisance.  But  by  re- 
versing it,  he  tells  us  something  not  unlike  news  ; 
something  that  sounds  quite  freshly  in  words  ;  and,  if 
the  reader  be  a  man,  gives  him  a  moment  of  great  self- 
satisfaction  and  spiritual  aggrandizement.  In  many 
different  authors  you  may  find  passages  more  remark- 
able for  grammar,  but  few  of  a  more  ingenious  turn, 
and  none  that  could  be  more  to  the  point  in  our  con- 
nection. The  tenacity  of  many  ordinary  people  in 
ordinary  pursuits  is  a  sort  of  standing  challenge  to 
everybody  else.  If  one  man  can  grow  absorbed  in 
delving  his  garden,  others  may  grow  absorbed  and 
happy   over   something   else.     Not  to  be   upsides  in 


Il6  WALT  WHITMAN. 

this  with  any  groom  or  gardener,  is  to  be  very  meanly 
organized.  A  man  should  be  ashamed  to  take  his 
food  if  he  has  not  alchemy  enough  in  his  stomach  to 
turn  some  of  it  into  intense  and  enjoyable  occupation. 
Whitman  tries  to  reinforce  this  cheerfulness  by  keep- 
ing up  a  sort  of  outdoor  atmosphere  of  sentiment. 
His  book,  he  tells  us,  should  be  read  "  among  the 
cooling  influences  of  external  nature  ;"  and  this  rec- 
ommendation, like  that  other  famous  one  which  Haw- 
thorne prefixed  to  his  collected  tales,  is  in  itself  a 
character  of  the  work.  Every  one  who  has  been  upon 
a  walking  or  a  boating  tour,  living  in  the  open  air, 
with  the  body  in  constant  exercise  and  the  mind  in 
fallow,  knows  true  ease  and  quiet.  The  irritating 
action  of  the  brain  is  set  at  rest ;  we  think  in  a  plain, 
unfeverish  temper  ;  little  things  seem  big  enough,  and 
great  things  no  longer  portentous  ;  and  the  world  is 
smilingly  accepted  as  it  is.  This  is  the  .spirit  that 
Whitman  inculcates  and  parades.  He  thinks  very  ill 
of  the  atmosphere  of  parlors  or  libraries.  Wisdom 
keeps  school  outdoors.  And  he  has  the  art  to  recom- 
mend this  attitude  of  mind  by  simply  pluming  himself 
upon  it  as  a  virtue  ;  so  that  the  reader,  to  keep  the 
advantage  over  his  author  which  most  readers  enjoy, 
is  tricked  into  professing  the  same  view.  And  this 
spirit,  as  it  is  his  chief  lesson,  is  the  greatest  charm  of 
his  work.  Thence,  in  spite  of  an  uneven  and  em- 
phatic key  of  expression,  something  trenchant  and 
straightforward,  something  simple  and  surprising,  dis- 
tinguishes his  poems.      He  has  sayings  that  come  home 


WALT  WHITMAN.  wj 

to  one  like  the  Bible.  We  fall  upon  Whitman,  after 
the  works  of  so  many  men  who  write  better,  with  a 
sense  of  relief  from  strain,  with  a  sense  of  touching 
nature,  as  when  one  passes  out  of  the  flaring,  noisy 
thoroughfares  of  a  great  city  into  what  he  himself  has 
called,  with  unexcelled  imaginative  justice  of  language, 
"  the  huge  and  thoughtful  night.  "  And  his  book  in 
consequence,  whatever  may  be  the  final  judgment  of 
its  merit,  whatever  may  be  its  influence  on  the  future, 
should  be  in  the  hands  of  all  parents  and  guardians  as 
a  specific  for  the  distressing  malady  of  being  seventeen 
years  old.  Green-sickness  yields  to  his  treatment  as 
to  a  charm  of  magic  ;  and  the  youth,  after  a  short 
course  of  reading,  ceases  to  carry  the  universe  upon 
his  shoulders. 

III. 

Whitman  is  not  one  of  those  who  can  be  deceived 
by  familiarity.  He  considers  it  just  as  wonderful  that 
there  are  myriads  of  stars,  as  that  one  man  should  rise 
from  the  dead.  He  declares  ' '  a  hair  on  the  back  of 
his  hand  just  as  curious  as  any  special  revelation." 
His  whole  life  is  to  him  what  it  was  to  Sir  Thomas 
Browne,  one  perpetual  miracle.  Everything  is  strange, 
everything  unaccountable,  everything  beautiful  ;  from 
a  bug  to  the  moon,  from  the  sight  of  the  eyes  to  the 
appetite  for  food.  He  makes  it  his  business  to  see 
things  as  if  he  saw  them  for  the  first  time,  and  pro- 
fesses astonishment  on  principle.  But  he  has  no  lean- 
ing toward  mythology  ;  avows  his  contempt  for  what 


Ii8  WALT  WHITMAN. 

he  calls  "  unregenerate  poetry  ;"   and  does  not  mean 
by  nature 

"The  smooth  walks,  trimmed  hedges,  butterflies,  posies, 
and  nightingales  of  the  English  poets,  but  the  whole  orb, 
with  its  geologic  history,  the  Kosmos,  carrying  fire  and  snow, 
that  rolls  through  the  illimitable  areas,  light  as  a  feather 
though  weighing  billions  of  tons." 

Nor  is  this  exhaustive  ;  for  in  his  character  of  ideal- 
ist all  impressions,  all  thoughts,  trees  and  people,  love 
and  faith,  astronomy,  history,  and  religion,  enter  upon 
equal  terms  into  his  notion  of  the  universe.  He  is  not 
against  religion  ;  not,  indeed,  against  any  religion. 
He  wishes  to  drag  with  a  larger  net,  to  make  a  more 
comprehensive  synthesis,  than  any  or  than  all  of  them 
put  together.  In  feeling  after  the  central  type  of  man, 
he  must  embrace  all  eccentricities  ;  his  cosmology 
must  subsume  all  cosmologies,  and  the  feelings  that 
gave  birth  to  them  ;  his  statement  of  facts  must  in- 
clude all  religion  and  all  irreligion,  Christ  and  Boodha, 
God  and  the  devil.  The  world  as  it  is,  and  the  whole 
world  as  it  is,  physical,  and  spiritual,  and  historical, 
with  its  good  and  bad,  with  its  manifold  inconsisten- 
cies, is  what  he  wishes  to  set  forth,  in  strong,  pictu- 
resque, and  popular  lineaments,  for  the  understanding 
of  the  average  man.  One  of  his  favorite  endeavors 
is  to  get  the  whole  matter  into  a  nutshell  ;  to  knock 
the  four  corners  of  the  universe,  one  after  another, 
about  his  readers'  ears  ;  to  hurry  him,  in  breathless 
phrases,  hither  and  thither,  back  and  forward,  in  time 
and  space  ;   to  focus  all  this  about  his  own  momentary 


I 


WALT  WHITMAN.  119 

personality  ;  and  then,  drawing  the  ground  from 
under  his  feet,  as  if  by  some  cataclysm  of  nature,  to 
plunge  him  into  the  unfathomable  abyss  sown  with 
enormous  suns  and  systems,  and  among  the  incon- 
ceivable numbers  and  magnitudes  and  velocities  of  the 
heavenly  bodies.  So  that  he  concludes  by  striking 
into  us  some  sense  of  that  disproportion  of  things 
which  Shelley  has  illuminated  by  the  ironical  flash  of 
these  eight  words  :  The  desire  of  the  moth  for  the  star. 
The  same  truth,  but  to  what  a  different  purpose  ! 
Whitman's  moth  is  mightily  at  his  ease  about  all 
the  planets  in  heaven,  and  cannot  think  too  highly  of 
our  sublunary  tapers.  The  universe  is  so  large  that 
imagination  flags  in  the  effort  to  conceive  it ;  but 
here,  in  the  meantime,  is  the  world  under  our  feet,  a 
very  warm  and  habitable  corner.  ' '  The  earth,  that 
is  sufficient ;  I  do  not  want  the  constellations  any 
nearer,"  he  remarks.  And  again  :  "  Let  your  soul 
stand  cool  and  composed,"  says  he,  "  before  a  million 
universes."  It  is  the  language  of  a  transcendental 
common  sense,  such  as  Thoreau  held  and  sometimes 
uttered.  But  Whitman,  who  has  a  somewhat  vulgar 
inclination  for  technical  talk  and  the  jargon  of  philoso- 
phy, is  not  content  with  a  few  pregnant  hints  ;  he 
must  put  the  dots  upon  his  i's  ;  he  must  corroborate 
the  songs  of  Apollo  by  some  of  the  darkest  talk  of  hu- 
man metaphysic.  He  tells  his  disciples  that  they  must 
be  ready  "  to  confront  the  growing  arrogance  of  Real- 
ism." Each  person  is,  for  himself,  the  keystone  and 
the  occasion  of  this  universal  edifice.      "  Nothing,  nut 


I20  IV ALT  WHITMAN. 

God, "  he  says,  "  is  greater  to  one  than  oneself  is  ;"  a 
statement  with  an  irreligious  smack  at  the  first  sight  ; 
but  like  most  startling  sayings,  a  manifest  truism  on  a 
second.  He  will  give  effect  to  his  own  character  with- 
out apology  ;  he  sees  "  that  the  elementary  laws  never 
apologize."  "  I  reckon,"  he  adds,  with  quaint  col- 
loquial arrogance,  "  I  reckon  I  behave  no  prouder 
than  the  level  I  plant  my  house  by,  after  all."  The 
level  follows  the  law  of  its  being  ;  so,  unrelentingly, 
will  he  ;  everything,  every  person,  is  good  in  his  own 
place  and  way  ;  God  is  the  maker  of  all,  and  all  are 
in  one  design.  For  he  believes  in  God,  and  that  with 
a  sort  of  blasphemous  security.  ' '  No  array  of  terms, 
quoth  he,  "  no  array  of  terms  can  say  how  much  at 
peace  I  am  about  God  and  about  death."  There  cer- 
tainly never  was  a  prophet  who  carried  things  with  a 
higher  hand  ;  he  gives  us  less  a  body  of  dogmas  than 
a  series  of  proclamations  by  the  grace  of  God  ;  and 
language,  you  will  observe,  positively  fails  him  to  ex- 
press how  far  he  stands  above  the  highest  human 
doubts  and  trepidations. 

But  next  in  order  of  truths  to  a  person's  sublime 
conviction  of  himself,  comes  the  attraction  of  one  per- 
son for  another,  and  all  that  we  mean  by  the  word 
love  : — 

"  The  dear  love   of  man  for  his  comrade — the  attraction  of 

friend  for  friend, 
Of   the  well-married  husband  and  wife,  of   children  and 

parents. 
Of  city  for  city  and  land  for  land." 


IVALT  WHITMAN.  12 1 

The  solitude  of  the  most  subHme  ideahst  is  broken 
in  upon  by  other  people's  faces  ;  he  sees  a  look  in 
their  eyes  that  corresponds  to  something  in  his  own 
heart  ;  there  comes  a  tone  in  their  voices  which  con- 
victs him  of  a  startling  weakness  for  his  fellow- 
creatures.  While  he  is  hymning  the  ego  and  com- 
mercing with  God  and  the  universe,  a  woman  goes 
below  his  window  ;  and  at  the  turn  of  her  skirt  or  the 
color  of  her  eyes,  Icarus  is  recalled  from  heaven  by  the 
run.  Love  is  so  startlingly  real  that  it  takes  rank  upon 
an  equal  footing  of  reality  with  the  consciousness  of 
personal  existence.  We  are  as  heartily  persuaded  of 
the  identity  of  those  we  love  as  of  our  own  identity. 
And  so  sympathy  pairs  with  self-assertion,  the  two 
gerents  of  human  life  on  earth  ;  and  Whitman's  ideal 
man  must  not  only  be  strong,  free,  and  self-reliant  in 
himself,  but  his  freedom  must  be  bounded  and  his 
strength  perfected  by  the  most  intimate,  eager,  and 
long-suffering  love  for  others.  To  some  extent  this  is 
taking  away  with  the  left  hand  what  has  been  so  gen- 
erously given  with  the  right.  Morality  has  been  cere- 
.  moniously  extruded  from  the  door  only  to  be  brought 
in  again  by  the  window.  We  are  told,  on  one  page, 
to  do  as  we  please  ;  and  on  the  next  we  are  sharply 
upbraided  for  not  having  done  as  the  author  pleases. 
We  are  first  assured  that  we  are  the  finest  fellows  in 
the  world  in  our  own  right ;  and  then  it  appears  that 
we  are  only  fine  fellows  in  so  far  as  we  practise  a  most 
quixotic  code  of  morals.  The  disciple  who  saw  him- 
self in  clear  ether  a  moment  before  is  plunged  down 


122  WALT  WHITMAN. 

again  among  the  fogs  and  complications  of  duty.  And 
this  is  all  the  more  overwhelming  because  Whitman 
insists  not  only  on  love  between  sex  and  sex,  and  be- 
tween friends  of  the  same  sex,  but  in  the  field  of  the 
less  intense  political  sympathies  ;  and  his  ideal  man 
must  not  only  be  a  generous  friend  but  a  conscien- 
tious voter  into  the  bargain. 

His  method  somewhat  lessens  the  difficulty.  He 
is  not,  the  reader  will  remember,  to  tell  us  how  good 
we  ought  to  be,  but  to  remind  us  how  good  we  are. 
He  is  to  encourage  us  to  be  free  and  kind,  by  proving 
that  we  are  free  and  kind  already.  He  passes  our  cor- 
porate life  under  review,  to  show  that  it  is  upheld  by 
the  very  virtues  of  which  he  makes  himself  the  advo- 
cate. "There  is  no  object  so  soft,"  he  says  some- 
where in  his  big,  plain  way,  "there  is  no  object  so 
soft  but  it  makes  a  hub  for  the  wheel'd  universe. " 
Rightly  understood,  it  is  on  the  softest  of  all  objects, 
the  sympathetic  heart,  that  the  wheel  of  society  turns 
easily  and  securely  as  on  a  perfect  axle.  There  is  no 
room,  of  course,  for  doubt  or  discussion,  about  con- 
duct, where  every  one  is  to  follow  the  law  of  his  being 
with  exact  compliance.  Whitman  hates  doubt,  depre- 
cates discussion,  and  discourages  to  his  utmost  the 
craving,  carping  sensibilities  of  the  conscience.  We 
ara  to  imitate,  to  use  one  of  his  absurd  and  happy 
phrases,  "  the  satisfaction  and  aplomb  of  animals." 
If  he  preaches  a  sort  of  ranting  Christianity  in  morals, 
a  fit  consequent  to  the  ranting  optimism  of  his  cos- 
mology, it  is  because  he  declares  it  to  be  the  original 


WALT  WHITMAN.  123 

deliverance  of  the  human  heart  ;  or  at  least,  for  he 
would  be  honestly  historical  in  method,  of  the  human 
heart  as  at  present  Christianized.  His  is  a  morality 
without  a  prohibition  ;  his  policy  is  one  of  encourage- 
ment all  round.  A  man  must  be  a  born  hero  to 
come  up  to  Whitman's  standard  in  the  practice  of  any 
of  the  positive  virtues  ;  but  of  a  negative  virtue,  such 
as  temperance  or  chastity,  he  has  so  little  to  say,  that 
the  reader  need  not  be  surprised  if  he  drops  a  word  or 
two  upon  the  other  side.  He  would  lay  down  noth- 
ing that  would  be  a  clog  ;  he  would  prescribe  nothing 
that  cannot  be  done  ruddily,  in  a  heat.  The  great 
point  is  to  get  people  under  way.  To  the  faithful 
Whitmanite  this  would  be  justified  by  the  belief  that 
God  made  all,  and  that  all  was  good  ;  the  prophet,  in 
this  doctrine,  has  only  to  cry  "  Tally-ho,"  and  man- 
kind will  break  into  a  gallop  on  the  road  to  El  Dorado. 
Perhaps,  to  another  class  of  minds,  it  may  look  like 
the  result  of  the  somewhat  cynical  reflection  that  you 
will  not  make  a  kind  man  out  of  one  who  is  unkind 
by  any  precepts  under  heaven  ;  tempered  by  the  belief 
that,  in  natural  circumstances,  the  large  majority  is  well 
disposed.  Thence  it  would  follow,  that  if  you  can 
only  get  every  one  to  feel  more  warmly  and  act  more 
courageously,  the  balance  of  results  will  be  for  good. 

So  far,  you  see,  the  doctrine  is  pretty  coherent  as  a 
doctrine  ;  as  a  picture  of  man's  life  it  is  incomplete 
and  misleading,  although  eminently  cheerful.  This 
he  is  himself  the  first  to  acknowledge  ;  for  if  he  is 
prophetic  in  anything,  it  is  in  his  noble  disregard  of 


124  IV ALT  WHITMAN. 

consistency.  "Do  I  contradict  myself?"  he  asks 
somewhere  ;  and  then  pat  comes  the  answer,  the  best 
answer  ever  given  in  print,  worthy  of  a  sage,  or  rather 
of  a  woman  :  "  Very  well,  then,  1  contradict  myself  !" 
with  this  addition,  not  so  feminine  and  perhaps  not 
•altogether  so  satisfactory  :  "  I  am  large— I  contain 
multitudes."  Life,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  partakes 
largely  of  the  nature  of  tragedy.  The  gospel  accord- 
ing to  Whitman,  even  if  it  be  not  so  logical,  has  this 
advantage  over  the  gospel  according  to  Pangloss,  that 
it  does  not  utterly  disregard  the  existence  of  temporal 
evil.  Whitman  accepts  the  fact  of  disease  and  wretch- 
edness like  an  honest  man  ;  and  instead  of  trying  to 
qualify  it  in  the  interest  of  his  optimism,  sets  himself 
to  spur  people  up  to  be  helpful.  He  expresses  a  con- 
viction, indeed,  that  all  will  be  made  up  to  the  victims 
in  the  end  ;  that  "what  is  untried  and  afterward" 
will  fail  no  one,  not  even  "  the  old  man  who  has  lived 
without  purpose  and  feels  it  with  bitterness  worse  than 
gall."  But  this  is  not  to  palliate  our  sense  of  what  is 
hard  or  melancholy  in  the  present.  Pangloss,  smart- 
ing under  one  of  the  worst  things  that  ever  was  sup- 
posed to  come  from  America,  consoled  himself  with 
the  reflection  that  it  was  the  price  we  have  to  pay  for 
cocTiineal.  And  with  that  murderous  parody,  logical 
optimism  and  the  praises  of  the  best  of  possible  words 
went  irrevocably  out  of  season,  and  have  been  no 
more  heard  of  in  the  mouths  of  reasonable  men. 
Whitman  spares  us  all  allusions  to  the  cochineal  ;  he 
treats  evil  and  sorrow  in  a  spirit  almost  as  of  welcome  ; 


WALT  WHITMAN.  125 

as  an  old  sea-dog  might  have  welcomed  the  sight  of 
the  enemy's  topsails  off  the  Spanish  Main.  There,  at 
least,  he  seems  to  say,  is  something  obvious  to  be 
done.  I  do  not  know  many  better  things  in  literature 
than  the  brief  pictures, — brief  and  vivid  like  things 
seen  by  lightning, — with  which  he  tries  to  stir  up  the 
world's  heart  upon  the  side  of  mercy.  He  braces  ub, 
on  the  one  hand,  with  examples  of  heroic  duty  and 
helpfulness  ;  on  the  other,  he  touches  us  with  pitiful 
instances  of  people  needing  help.  He  knows  how  to 
make  the  heart  beat  at  a  brave  story  ;  to  inflame  us 
with  just  resentment  over  the  hunted  slave  ;  to  stop 
our  mouths  for  shame  when  he  tells  of  the  drunken 
prostitute.  For  all  the  afflicted,  all  the  weak,  all  the 
wicked,  a  good  word  is  said  in  a  spirit  which  I  can 
only  call  one  of  ultra-Christianity  ;  and  however  wild, 
however  contradictory,  it  may  be  in  parts,  this  at  least 
may  be  said  for  his  book,  as  it  may  be  said  of  the 
Christian  Gospels,  that  no  one  will  read  it,  however 
respectatile,  but  he  gets  a  ^ocK  upon  his  con- 
science ;  no  one,  however  fallen,  but  he  finds  a  kindly 
aod  supporting  welcome. 

IV. 

Nor  has  he  been  content  with  merely  blowing  the 
trumpet  for  the  battle  of  well-doing  ;  he  has  given  to 
his  precepts  the  authority  of  his  own  brave  example. 
Naturally  a  grave,  believing  man,  with  little  or  no 
sense  of  humor,  he  has  succeeded  as  well  in  life  as  in 


126  JVALT  WHITMAN. 

his  printed  performances.  The  spirit  that  was  in  him 
has  come  forth  most  eloquently  in  his  actions.  Many 
who  have  only  read  his  poetry  have  been  tempted  to 
set  him  down  as  an  ass,  or  even  as  a  charlatan  ;  but  I 
never  met  any  one  who  had  known  him  personally 
who  did  not  profess  a  solid  affection  and  respect  for 
the  man's  character.  He  practises  as  he  professes  ; 
he  feels  deeply  that  Christian  love  for  all  men,  that 
toleration,  that  cheerful  delight  in  serving  others, 
which  he  often  celebrates  in  literature  with  a  doubtful 
measure  of  success.  And  perhaps,  out  of  all  his 
writings,  the  best  and  the  most  human  and  convincing 
passages  are  to  be  found  in  "  these  soi'i'd  and  creas'd 
little  livraisons,  each  composed  of  a  sheet  or  two  of 
paper,  folded  small  to  carry  in  the  pocket,  and  fast- 
ened with  a  pin,"  which  he  scribbled  during  the  war 
by  the  bedsides  of  the  wounded  or  in  the  excitement 
of  great  events.  They  are  hardly  literature  in  the 
formal  meaning  of  the  word  ;  he  has  left  his  jottings 
for  the  most  part  as  he  made  them  ;  a  homely  detail, 
a  word  from  the  lips  of  a  dying  soldier,  a  business 
memorandum,  the  copy  of  a  letter — short,  straight- 
forward to  the  point,  with  none  of  the  trappings  of 
composition  ;  but  they  breathe  a  profound  sentiment, 
they  give  us  a  vivid  look  at  one  of  the  sides  of  life, 
and  they  make  us  acquainted  with  a  man  whom  it  is 
an  honor  to  love. 

Whitman's  intense  Americanism,  his  unlimited  be- 
lief in  the  future  of  These  States  (as,  with  reverential 


WALT   WHITMAN.  1 27 

capitals,  he  loves  to  call  them),  made  the  war  a  period 
of  great  trial  to  his  soul.  The  new  virtue,  Unionism, 
of  which  he  is  the  sole  inventor,  seemed  to  have  fall- 
en into  premature  unpopularity.  All  that  he  loved, 
hoped,  or  hated,  hung  in  the  balance.  A.nd  the  game 
of  war  was  not  only  momentous  to  him  in  its  issues  ; 
it  sublimated  his  spirit  by  its  heroic  displays,  and  tor- 
tured him  intimately  by  the  spectacle  of  its  horrors. 
It  was  a  theatre,  it  was  a  place  of  education,  it  was 
like  a  season  of  religious  revival.  He  watched  Lin- 
coln going  daily  to  his  work  ;  he  studied  and  frater- 
nized with  young  soldiery  passing  to  the  front  ;  above 
all,  he  walked  the  hospitals,  reading  the  Bible,  dis- 
tributing clean  clothes,  or  apples,  or  tobacco  ;  a  pa- 
tient, helpful,  reverend  man,  full  of  kind  speeches. 

His  memoranda  of  this  period  are  almost  bewilder- 
ing to  read.  From  one  point  of  view  they  seem  those 
of  a  district  visitor  ;  from  another,  they  look  like  the 
formless  jottings  of  an  artist  in  the  picturesque.  More 
than  one  woman,  on  whom  I  tried  the  experiment, 
immediately  claimed  the  writer  for  a  fellow- woman. 
More  than  one  literary  purist  might  identify  him  as  a 
shoddy  newspaper  correspondent  without  the  necessary 
faculty  of  style.  And  yet  the  story  touches  home  ; 
and  if  you  are  of  the  weeping  order  of  mankind,  you 
will  certainly  find  your  eyes  fill  with  tears,  of  which 
you  have  no  reason  to  be  ashamed.  There  is  only 
one  way  to  characterize  a  work  of  this  order,  and  that 
is  to   quote.     Here  is  a  passage  from  a  letter  to  a 


128  IVJLT  IVIIITAIAN. 

mother,    unknown  to  Whitman,   whose  son   died  in 
hospital  : — 

"  Frank,  as  far  as  I  saw,  had  everything  requisite  in  sur. 
gical  treatment,  nursing,  etc.  He  had  watches  much  of  the 
time.  He  was  so  good  and  well-behaved,  and  affectionate, 
I  myself  liked  him  very  much.  I  was  in  the  habit  of  com- 
ing in  afternoons  and  sitting  by  him,  and  he  liked  to  have 
me — liked  to  put  out  his  arm  and  lay  his  hand  on  my  knee — 
would  keep  it  so  a  long  while.  Toward  the  last  he  was 
more  restless  and  flighty  at  night — often  fancied  himself 
with  his  regiment — by  his  talk  sometimes  seem'd  as  if  his 
feelings  were  hurt  by  being  blamed  by  his  officers  for  some- 
thing he  was  entirely  innocent  of — said  '  I  never  in  my  life 
was  thought  capable  of  such  a  thing,  and  never  was.'  At 
other  times  he  Avould  fancy  himself  talking  as  it  seem'd  to 
children  or  such  like,  his  relatives,  I  suppose,  and  giving 
them  good  advice  ;  would  talk  to  them  a  long  while.  All 
the  time  he  was  out  of  his  head  not  one  single  bad  word,  or 
thought,  or  idea  escaped  him.  It  was  remark'd  that  many 
a  man's  conversation  in  his  senses  was  not  half  so  good  as 
Frank's  delirium. 

"  He  was  perfectly  willing  to  die — he  had  become  very 
weak,  and  had  suffer'd  a  good  deal,  and  was  perfectly  re- 
sign'd,  poor  boy.  I  do  not  know  his  past  life,  but  I  feel  as 
if  it  must  have  been  good.  At  any  rate  what  I  saw  of  him 
here,  under  the  most  trying  circumstances,  with  a  painful 
wound,  and  among  strangers,  I  can  say  that  he  behaved  so 
brave,  so  composed,  and  so  sweet  and  affectionate,  it  could 
not  be  surpassed.  And  now,  like  many  other  noble  and 
good  men,  after  serving  his  country  as  a  soldier,  he  has  yielded 
up  his  young  life  at  the  very  outset  in  her  service.  Such  things 
are  gloomy — yet  there  is  a  text,  '  God  doeth  all  things  well,' 
the  meaning  of  which,  after  due  time,  appears  to  the  soul. 

"  I  thought  perhaps  a  few  words,  though  from  a  stranger, 
about   your  son,   from   one  who  was  with  him  at  the  last, 


WALT  WHITMAN.  129 

might  be  worth  while,  for  I  loved  the  young  man,  though  I 
but  saw  him  immediately  to  lose  him." 

It  is  easy  enough  to  pick  holes  in  the  grammar  of 
this  letter,  but  what  are  we  to  say  of  its  profound  good- 
ness and  tenderness  ?  It  is  written  as  though  he  had 
the  mother' s  face  before  his  eyes,  and  saw  her  wincing 
in  the  flesh  at  every  word.  And  what,  again,  are  we 
to  say  of  its  sober  truthfulness,  not  exaggerating,  not 
running  to  phrases,  not  seeking  to  make  a  hero  out 
of  what  was  only  an  ordinary  but  good  and  brave 
young  man  ?  Literary  reticence  is  not  Whitman's 
stronghold ;  and  this  reticence  is  not  literary,  but 
humane  ;  it  is  not  that  of  a  good  artist  but  that  of  a 
good  man.  He  knew  that  what  the  mother  wished  to 
hear  about  was  Frank  ;  and  he  told  her  about  her 
Frank  as  he  was. 

V. 

Something  should  be  said  of  ^Whitman's  style,  for 
style  is  of  the  essence  of  thinking.  And  where  a  man 
is  so  critically  deliberate  as  our  author,  and  goes 
solemnly  about  his  poetry  for  an  ulterior  end,  every 
indication  is  worth  notice.  He  has  chosen  a  rough, 
unrhymed,  lyrical  verse  ;  sometimes  instinct  with  a 
fine  processional  movement ;  often  so  rugged  and 
careless  that  it  can  only  be  described  by  saying  that  he 
has  not  taken  the  trouble  to  write  prose.  I  believe 
myself  that  it  was  selected  principally  because  it  was 
easy  to  write,  although  not  without  recollections  of 
the  marching  measures  of  some  of  the  prose  in  our 


130  WALT  WHITMAN. 

English  Old  Testament.  According  to  Whitman,  on 
the  other  hand,  "  the  time  has  arrived  to  essentially 
break  down  the  barriers  of  form  between  Prose  and 
Poetry  ...  for  the  most  cogent  purposes  of  those 
great  inland  slates,  and  for  Texas,  and  California,  and 
Oregon  ;" — a  statement  which  is  among  the  happiest 
achievements  of  American  humor.  He  calls  his 
verses  "recitatives,"  in  easily  followed  allusion  to 
a  musical  form.  "  Easily-written,  loose-fingered 
chords,"  he  cries,  "  I  feel  the  thrum  of  your  climax 
and  close."  Too  often,  I  fear,  he  is  the  only  one  who 
can  perceive  the  rhythm  ;  and  in  spite  of  I\Ir.  Swin- 
burne, a  great  part  of  his  work  considered  as  verse  is 
poor  bald  stuff.  Considered,  not  as  verse,  but  as 
speech,  a  great  part  of  it  is  full  of  strange  and  admir- 
able merits.  The  right  detail  is  seized  ;  the  right 
word,  bold  and  trenchant,  is  thrust  into  its  place. 
Whitman  has  small  regard  to  literary  decencies,  and 
is  totally  free  from  literary  timidities.  He  is  neither 
afraid  of  being  slangy  nor  of  being  dull  ;  nor,  let  me 
add,  of  being  ridiculous.  The  result  is  a  most  sur- 
prising compound  of  plain  grandeur,  sentimental 
affectation,  and  downright  nonsense.  It  would  be 
useless  to  follow  his  detractors  and  give  instances  of 
how  bad  he  can  be  at  his  worst  ;  and  perhaps  it  would 
be  not  much  wiser  to  give  extracted  specimens  of  how 
happily  he  can  write  when  he  is  at  his  best.  These 
come  in  to  most  advantage  in  their  own  place  ;  owing 
something,  it  may  be,  to  the  offset  of  their  curious 
surroundings.     And  one  thing  is  certain,  that  no  one 


WALT  WHITMAN.  131 

can  appreciate  Whitman's  excellences  until  he  has 
grown  accustomed  to  his  faults.  Until  you  are  con- 
tent to  pick  poetry  out  of  his  pages  almost  as  you 
must  pick  it  out  of  a  Greek  play  in  Bohn's  transla- 
tion, your  gravity  will  be  continually  upset,  your  ears 
perpetually  disappointed,  and  the  whole  book  will  be 
no  more  to  you  than  a  particularly  flagrant  production 
by  the  Poet  Close. 

A  writer  of  this  uncertain  quality  was,  perhaps,  un- 
fortunate in  taking  for  thesis  the  beauty  of  the  world 
as  it  now  is,  not  only  on  the  hill-tops,  but  in  the  fac- 
tory ;  not  only  by  the  harbor  full  of  stately  ships,  but 
in  the  magazine  of  the  hopelessly  prosaic  hatter.  To 
show  beauty  in  common  things  is  the  work  of  the  rar- 
est tact.  It  is  not  to  be  done  by  the  wishing.  It  is 
easy  to  posit  as  a  theory,  but  to  bring  it  home  to 
men's  minds  is  the  problem  of  literature,  and  is  only 
accomplished  by  rare  talent,  and  in  comparatively  rare 
instances.  To  bid  the  whole  world  stand  and  deliver, 
with  a  dogma  in  one's  right  hand  by  way  of  pistol  ; 
to  cover  reams  of  paper  in  a  galloping,  headstrong 
vein  ;  to  cry  louder  and  louder  over  everything  as  it 
comes  up,  and  make  no  distinction  in  one's  enthusi- 
asm over  the  most  incomparable  matters  ;  to  prove 
one's  entire  want  of  sympathy  for  the  jaded,  literary 
palate,  by  calling,  not  a  spade  a  spade,  but  a  hatter  a 
hatter,  in  a  lyrical  apostrophe  ; — this,  in  spite  of  all 
the  airs  of  inspiration,  is  not  the  way  to  do  it.  It  may 
be  very  wrong,  and  very  wounding  to  a  respectable 
branch  of  industrj-,  but  the   word   "hatter"  cannot 


132  WALT  WHITMAN. 

be  used  seriously  in  emotional  verse  ;  not  to  under- 
stand this,  is  to  have  no  literary  tact ;  and  I  would, 
for  his  own  sake,  that  this  were  the  only  inadmissible 
expression  with  which  Whitman  had  bedecked  his 
pages.  The  book  teems  with  similar  comicalities  ; 
and,  to  a  reader  who  is  determined  to  take  it  from 
that  side  only,  presents  a  perfect  carnival  of  fun. 

A  good  deal  of  this  is  the  result  of  theory  playing 
its  usual  vile  trick  upon  the  artist.  It  is  because  he  is 
a  Democrat  that  Whitman  must  have  in  the  hatter. 
If  you  may  say  Admiral,  he  reasons,  why  may  you 
not  say  Hatter  }  One  man  is  as  good  as  another,  and 
it  is  the  business  of  the  "  great  poet"  to  show  poetry 
in  the  life  of  the  one  as  well  as  the  other.  A  most 
incontrovertible  sentiment  surely,  and  one  which  no- 
body would  think  of  controverting,  where — and  here 
is  the  point — where  any  beauty  has  been  shown.  But 
how,  where  that  is  not  the  case }  where  the  hatter  is 
simply  introduced,  as  God  made  him  and  as  his  fel- 
low-men have  miscalled  him,  at  the  crisis  of  a  high- 
flown  rhapsody  ?  And  what  are  we  to  say,  where  a 
man  of  Whitman's  notable  capacity  for  putting  things 
in  a  bright,  picturesque,  and  novel  way,  simply  gives 
up  the  attempt,  and  indulges,  with  apparent  exulta- 
tion, in  an  inventory  of  trades  or  implements,  with  no 
more  color  or  coherence  than  so  many  index-words 
out  of  a  dictionary  ?  I  do  not  know  that  we  can  say 
anything,  but  that  it  is  a  prodigiously  amusing  exhi- 
bition for  a  line  or  so.  The  worst  of  it  is,  that  Whit- 
man  must  have  known  better.     The  man  is  a  great 


WALT  WHITMAN.  133 

critic,  and,  sc?  far  as  I  can  make  out,  a  good  one  ; 
and  how  much  criticism  does  it  require  to  know  that 
capitulation  is  not  description,  or  that  fingering  on  a 
dumb  keyboard,  with  whatever  show  of  sentiment  and 
execution,  is  not  at  all  the  same  thing  as  discoursing 
music  ?  I  wish  I  could  believe  he  was  quite  honest 
with  us  ;  but,  indeed,  who  was  ever  quite  honest  who 
wrote  a  book  for  a  purpose  ?  It  is  a  flight  beyond  the 
reach  of  human  magnanimity. 

One  other  point,  where  his  means  failed  him,  must 
be  touched  upon,  however  shortly.  In  his  desire  to 
accept  all  facts  loyally  and  simply,  it  fell  within  his 
programme  to  speak  at  some  length  and  with  some 
plainness  on  what  is,  for  I  really  do  not  know  what 
reason,  the  most  delicate  of  subjects.  Seeing  in  that 
one  of  the  most  serious  and  interesting  parts  of  life,  he 
was  aggrieved  that  it  should  be  looked  upon  as  ridicu- 
lous or  shameful.  No  one  speaks  of  maternity  with 
his  tongue  in  his  cheek  ;  and  Whitman  made  a  bold 
push  to  set  the  sanctity  of  fatherhood  beside  the 
sanctity  of  motherhood,  and  introduce  this  also  among 
the  things  that  can  bespoken  of  without  either  a  blush 
or  a  wink.  But  the  Philistines  have  been  too  strong  ; 
and,  to  say  truth.  Whitman  has  rather  played  the  fool. 
We  may  be  thoroughly  conscious  that  his  end  is  im- 
proving ;  that  it  would  be  a  good  thing  if  a  window 
were  opened  on  these  close  privacies  of  life  ;  that  on 
this  subject,  as  on  all  others,  he  now  and  then  lets  fall 
a  pregnant  saying.  But  we  are  not  satisfied.  We  feel 
that  he  was  not  the  man  for  so  difficult  an  enterprise. 


134  WALT  WHITMAN. 

He  loses  our  sympathy  in  the  character  of  a  poet  by 
attracting  too  much  of  our  attention  in  that  of  a  Bull 
in  a  China  Shop.  And  where,  by  a  little  more  art, 
we  might  have  been  solemnized  ourselves,  it  is  too 
often  Whitman  alone  who  is  solemn  in  the  face  of  an 
audience  somewhat  indecorously  amused. 

VI. 

Lastly,  as  most  important,  after  all,  to  human  be- 
ings in  our  disputable  state,  what  is  that  higher  pru- 
dence which  was  to  be  the  aim  and  issue  of  these  delib- 
erate productions  ? 

Whitman  is  too  clever  to  slip  into  a  succinct  for- 
mula. If  he  could  have  adequately  said  his  say  in  a 
single  proverb,  it  is  to  be  presumed  he  would  not  have 
put  himself  to  the  trouble  of  writing  several  volumes. 
It  was  his  programme  to  state  as  much  as  he  could  of 
the  world  with  all  its  contradictions,  and  leave  the  up- 
shot with  God  who  planned  it.  What  he  has  made 
of  the  world  and  the  world's  meanings  is  to  be 
found  at  large  in  his  poems.  These  altogether  give 
his  answers  to  the  problems  of  belief  and  conduct  ;  in 
many  ways  righteous  and  high-spirited,  in  some  ways 
loose  and  contradictory.  And  yet  there  are  two  pas- 
sages from  the  preface  to  the  Leaves  of  Grass  which 
do  pretty  well  condense  his  teaching  on  all  essential 
points,  and  yet  preserve  a  measure  of  his  spirit. 

"This  is  what  you  shall  do,"  he  says  in  the  one,  "love 
the  earth,  and  sun,  and  animals,  despise  riches,  give  alms  to 


WALT  WHITMAN.  135 

every  one  that  asks,  stand  up  for  the  stupid  and  crazy,  de- 
vote your  income  and  labor  to  others,  hate  tyrants,  argue 
not  concerning  God,  have  patience  and  indulgence  toward 
the  people,  take  off  your  hat  to  nothing  known  or  unknown, 
or  to  any  man  or  number  of  men  ;  go  freely  with  powerful 
uneducated  persons,  and  with  the  young,  and  mothers  of 
families,  read  these  leaves  (his  own  works)  in  the  open  air 
every  season  of  every  year  of  your  life  ;  re-examine  all  you 
have  been  told  at  school  or  church,  or  in  any  book,  and  dis- 
miss whatever  insults  your  own  soul." 

"  The  prudence  of  the  greatest  poet,"  he  adds  in  the  other 
— and  the  greatest  poet  is,  of  course,  himself — "  knows  that 
the  young  man  who  composedly  perilled  his  life  and  lost  it, 
has  done  exceeding  well  for  himself  ;  while  the  man  who 
has  not  perilled  his  life,  and  retains  it  to  old  age  in  riches 
and  ease,  has  perhaps  achieved  nothing  for  himself  worth 
mentioning  ;  and  that  only  that  person  has  no  great  pru- 
dence to  learn,  who  has  learnt  to  prefer  real  long-lived 
things,  and  favors  body  and  soul  the  same,  and  perceives 
the  indirect  surely  following  the  direct,  and  what  evil  or 
good  he  does  leaping  onward  and  waiting  to  meet  him 
again,  and  who  in  his  spirit,  in  any  emergency  whatever, 
neither  hurries  nor  avoids  death." 

There  is  much  that  is  Christian  in  these  extracts, 
startlingly  Christian.  Any  reader  who  bears  in  mind 
Whitman's  own  advice  and  "  dismisses  whatever  in- 
sults his  own  soul  "  will  find  plenty  that  is  bracing, 
brightening,  and  chastening  to  reward  him  for  a  little 
patience  at  first.  It  seems  hardly  possible  that  any 
being  should  get  evil  from  so  healthy  a  book  as  the 
Leaves  of  Grass,  which  is  simply  comical  wherever  it 
falls  short  of  nobility  ;  but  if  there  be  any  such,  who 


136  WALT  WHITMAN. 

cannot  both  take  and  leave,  who  cannot  let  a  single 
opportunity  pass  by  without  some  unworthy  and  un- 
manly thought,  I  should  have  as  great  difficulty,  and 
neither  more  nor  less,  in  recommending  the  works  of 
Whitman  as  in  lending  them  Shakespeare,  or  letting 
them  go  abroad  outside  of  the  grounds  of  a  private 
asylum. 


HENRY   DAVID   THOREAU  : 
HIS  CHARACTER   AND   OPINIONS. 


Thoreau's  thin,  penetrating,  big-nosed  face,  even 
in  a  bad  woodcut,  conveys  some  hint  of  the  Umitations 
of  his  mind  and  character.  With  his  almost  acid 
sharpness  of  insight,  with  his  almost  animal  dexterity 
in  act,  there  went  none  of  that  large,  unconscious 
geniality  of  the  world's  heroes.  He  was  not  easy,  not 
ample,  not  urbane,  not  even  kind  ;  his  enjoyment  was 
hardly  smiling,  or  the  smile  was  not  broad  enough  to 
be  convincing  ;  he  had  no  waste  lands  nor  kitchen- 
midden  in  his  nature,  but  was  all  improved  and  sharp- 
ened to  a  point.  "  He  was  bred  to  no  profession," 
says  Emerson  ;  "he  never  married  ;  he  lived  alone  ; 
he  never  went  to  church  ;  he  never  voted  ;  he  refused 
to  pay  a  tax  to  the  State  ;  he  ate  no  flesh,  he  drank  no 
wine,  he  never  knew  the  use  of  tobacco  ;  and,  though 
a  naturalist,  he  used  neither  trap  nor  gun.  When 
asked  at  dinner  what  dish  he  preferred,  he  answered, 
'  the  nearest'  "  So  many  negative  superiorities  begin 
to  smack  a  little  of  the  prig.  From  his  later  works  he 
was  in  the  habit  of  cutting  out  the  humorous  passages. 


138  HENR  V  DA  VID  THOKEA  U  : 

under  the  impression  that  they  were  beneath  the  dig- 
nity of  his  moral  muse  ;  and  there  we  see  the  prig 
stand  public  and  confessed.  It  was  "  much  easier," 
says  Emerson  acutely,  much  easier  for  Thoreau  to  say 
no  ihanj'cs  ;  and  that  is  a  characteristic  which  depicts 
the  man.  It  is  a  useful  accomplishment  to  be  able  to 
say  no,  but  surely  it  is  the  essence  of  amiability  to 
prefer  to  say  yes  where  it  is  possible.  There  is  some- 
thing wanting  in  the  man  who  does  not  hate  himself 
whenever  he  is  constrained  to  say  no.  And  there  was 
a  great  deal  wanting  in  this  born  dissenter.  He  was 
almost  shockingly  devoid  of  weaknesses  ;  he  had  not 
enough  of  them  to  be  truly  polar  with  humanity  ; 
whether  you  call  him  demi-god  or  demi-man,  he  was 
at  least  not  altogether  one  of  us,  for  he  was  not  touched 
with  a  feeling  of  our  infirmities.  The  world's  heroes 
have  room  for  all  positive  qualities,  even  those  which 
are  disreputable,  in  the  capacious  theatre  of  their  dis- 
positions. Such  can  live  many  lives  ;  while  a  Thoreau 
can  live  but  one,  and  that  only  with  perpetual  fore- 
sight. 

He  was  no  ascetic,  rather  an  Epicurean  of  the  nobler 
sort ;  and  he  had  this  one  great  merit,  that  he  suc- 
ceeded so  far  as  to  be  happy.  "  I  love  my  fate  to  the 
core  and  rind,"  he  wrote  once  ;  and  even  while  he 
lay  dying,  here  is  what  he  dictated  (for  it  seems  he  was 
already  too  feeble  to  control  the  pen)  :  "  You  ask 
particularly  after  my  health.  I  suppose  that  I  have  not 
many  months  to  live,  but  of  course  know  nothing 
about  it.     I  may  say  that  I  am  enjoying  existence  as 


HIS  CHARACTER  AND  OPINIONS.         139 

much  as  ever,  and  regret  nothing."  It  is  not  given 
to  all  to  bear  so  clear  a  testimony  to  the  sweetness  of 
their  fate,  nor  to  any  without  courage  and  wisdom  ; 
for  this  world  in  itself  is  but  a  painful  and  uneasy 
place  of  residence,  and  lasting  happiness,  at  least  to 
the  self-conscious,  comes  only  from  within.  Now 
Thoreau's  content  and  ecstasy  in  living  was,  we  may 
say,  like  a  plant  that  he  had  watered  and  tended  with 
womanish  solicitude  ;  for  there  is  apt  to  be  something 
unmanly,  somethmg  almost  dastardly,  in  a  life  that 
does  not  move  with  dash  and  freedom,  and  that  fears 
the  bracing  contact  of  the  world.  In  one  word, 
Thoreau  was  a  skulker.  He  did  not  wish  virtue  to  go 
out  of  him  among  his  fellow-men,  but  slunk  into  a 
corner  to  hoard  it  for  himself.  He  left  all  for  the  sake 
of  certain  virtuous  self-indulgences.  It  is  true  that  his 
tastes  were  noble  ;  that  his  ruling  passion  was  to  keep 
himself  unspotted  from  the  world  ;  and  that  his  luxu- 
ries were  all  of  the  same  healthy  order  as  cold  tubs  and 
early  rising.  But  a  man  may  be  both  coldly  cruel  in 
the  pursuit  of  goodness,  and  morbid  even  in  the  pur- 
suit of  health.  I  cannot  lay  my  hands  on  the  passage 
in  which  he  explains  his  abstinence  from  tea  and 
coffee,  but  I  am  sure  I  have  the  meaning  correctly. 
It  is  this  :  He  thought  it  bad  economy  and  worthy  of 
no  true  virtuoso  to  spoil  the  natural  rapture  of  the 
morning  with  such  muddy  stimulants  ;  let  him  but  see 
the  sun  rise,  and  he  was  already  sufficiently  inspirited 
for  the  labors  of  the  day.  That  may  be  reason  good 
enough  to  abstain  from   tea  ;  but  when  we  go  on  to 


I40  HENR  V  DA  VID   THOKEA  U. 

find  the  same  man,  on  the  same  or  similar  grounds, 
abstain  from  nearly  everything  that  his  neighbors  in- 
nocently and  pleasurably  use,  and  from  the  rubs  and 
trials  of  human  society  itself  into  the  bargain,  we  rec- 
ognize that  valetudinarian  healthfulness  which  is  more 
delicate  than  sickness  itself.  We  need  have  no  re- 
spect for  a  state  of  artificial  training.  True  health  is 
to  be  able  to  do  without  it.  Shakespeare,  we  can 
imagine,  might  begin  the  day  upon  a  quart  of  ale, 
and  yet  enjoy  the  sunrise  to  the  full  as  much  as 
Thoreau,  and  commemorate  his  enjoyment  in  vastly 
better  verses.  A  man  who  must  separate  himself  from 
his  neighbors'  habits  in  order  to  be  happy,  is  in  much 
the  same  case  with  one  who  requires  to  take  opium  for 
the  same  purpose.  What  we  want  to  see  is  one  who 
can  breast  into  the  world,  do  a  man's  work,  and  still 
preserve  his  first  and  pure  enjoyment  of  existence. 

Thoreau' s  faculties  were  of  a  piece  with  his  moral 
shyness  ;  for  they  were  all  delicacies.  He  could  guide 
himself  about  the  woods  on  the  darkest  night  by  the 
touch  of  his  feet.  He  could  pick  up  at  once  an  exact 
dozen  of  pencils  by  the  feeling,  pace  distances  with 
accuracy,  and  gauge  cubic  contents  by  the  eye.  His 
smell  was  so  dainty  that  he  could  perceive  the  foetor  of 
dweHing-houses  as  he  passed  them  by  at  night  ;  his 
palate  so  unsophisticated  that,  like  a  child,  he  disliked 
the  taste  of  wine — or  perhaps,  living  in  America,  had 
never  tasted  any  that  was  good  ;  and  his  knowledge 
of  nature  was  so  complete  and  curious  that  he  could 
have  told  the  time  of  year,  within  a  day  or  so,  by  the 


HIS  CHARACTER  AND  OPINIONS.         141 

aspect  of  the  plants.  In  his  dealings  with  animals,  he 
was  the  original  of  Hawthorne's  Donatello,  He  pulled 
the  woodchuck  out  of  its  hole  by  the  tail  ;  the  hunted 
fox  came  to  him  for  protection  ;  wild  squirrels  have 
been  seen  to  nestle  in  his  waistcoat ;  he  would  thrust 
his  arm  into  a  pool  and  bring  forth  a  bright,  panting 
fish,  lying  undismayed  in  the  palm  of  his  hand. 
There  were  few  things  that  he  could  not  do.  He 
could  make  a  house,  a  boat,  a  pencil,  or  a  book. 
He  was  a  surveyor,  a  scholar,  a  natural  historian. 
He  could  run,  walk,  climb,  skate,  swim,  and  manage 
a  boat.  The  smallest  occasion  served  to  display  his 
physical  accomplishment  ;  and  a  manufacturer,  from 
merely  observing  his  dexterity  with  the  window  of  a 
railway  carriage,  offered  him  a  situation  on  the  spot. 
"The  only  fruit  of  much  living,"  he  observes,  "is 
the  ability  to  do  some  slight  thing  better."  But  such 
was  the  exactitude  of  his  senses,  so  alive  was  he  in 
every  fibre,  that  it  seems  as  if  the  maxim  should  be 
changed  in  his  case,  for  he  could  do  most  things  with 
unusual  perfection.  And  perhaps  he  had  an  approv- 
ing eye  to  himself  when  he  wrote  :  "  Though  the 
youth  at  last  grows  indifferent,  the  laws  of  the  uni- 
verse are  not  indifferent,  hut  are  forever  on  the  side 
of  the  most  sensitive.^' 

II. 

Thoreau  had  decided,  it  would  seem,  from  the  very 
first  to  lead  a  life  of  self-improvement  :  the  needle  did 
not  tremble  as  with  richer  natures,  but  pointed  stead- 


142  HENK  Y  DA  VID   THOREAU  : 

ily  north  ;  and  as  he  saw  duty  and  inclination  in  one, 
he  turned  all  his  strength  in  that  direction.  He  was 
met  upon  the  threshold  by  a  common  difficulty.  In 
this  world,  in  spite  of  its  many  agreeable  features, 
even  the  most  sensitive  must  undergo  some  drudgery 
to  live.  It  is  not  possible  to  devote  your  time  to 
study  and  meditation  without  what  are  quaintly  but 
happily  denominated  private  means  ;  these  absent,  a 
man  must  contrive  to  earn  his  bread  by  some  service 
to  the  public  such  as  the  public  cares  to  pay  him  for  ; 
or,  as  Thoreau  loved  to  put  it,  Apollo  must  serve 
Admetus.  This  was  to  Thoreau  even  a  sourer  neces- 
sity than  it  is  to  most  ;  there  was  a  love  of  freedom,  a 
strain  of  the  wild  man,  in  his  nature,  that,  rebelled 
with  violence  against  the  yoke  of  custom  ;  and  he  was 
so  eager  to  cultivate  himself  and  to  be  happy  in  his 
own  society,  that  he  could  consent  with  difficulty  even 
to  the  interruptions  of  friendship.  "  Such  are  my 
engagements  to  myself  that  I  dare  not  promise,"  he 
once  wrote  in  answer  to  an  invitation  ;  and  the  italics 
are  his  own.  Marcus  Aurelius  found  time  to  study 
virtue,  and  between  whiles  to  conduct  the  imperial 
affairs  of  Rome  ;  but  Thoreau  is  so  busy  improving 
himself,  that  he  must  think  twice  about  a  morning 
call.  And  now  imagine  him  condemned  for  eight 
hours  a  day  to  some  uncongenial  and  unmeaning 
business  !  He  shrank  from  the  very  look  of  the  me- 
chanical in  life  ;  all  should,  if  possible,  be  sweetly 
spontaneous  and  swimmingly  progressive.  Thus  he 
learned   to    make    lead-pencils,    and,    when    he  had 


HIS  CHARACTER  AND  OPINIONS.         143 

gained  the  best  certificate  and  his  friends  began  to 
congratulate  him  on  his  estabHshment  in  life,  calmly 
announced  that  he  should  never  make  another. 
"  Why  should  I  ?"  said  he  ;  "I  would  not  do  again 
what  I  have  done  once."  For  when  a  thing  has  once 
been  done  as  well  as  it  wants  to  be,  it  is  of  no  further 
interest  to  the  self-improver.  Yet  in  after  years,  and 
when  it  became  needful  to  support  his  family,  he  re- 
turned patiently  to  this  mechanical  art — a  step  more 
than  worthy  of  himself. 

The  pencils  seem  to  have  been  Apollo's  first  experi- 
ment in  the  service  of  Admetus  ;  but  others  followed. 
"  I  have  thoroughly  tried  school-keeping,"  he  writes, 
''  and  found  that  my  expenses  were  in  proportion, 
or  rather  out  of  proportion,  to  my  income  ;  for  I  was 
obliged  to  dress  and  train,  not  to  say  think  and  be- 
lieve, accordingly,  and  I  lost  my  time  into  the  bar- 
gain. As  I  did  not  teach  for  the  benefit  of  my  fellow- 
men,  but  simply  for  a  livelihood,  this  was  a  failure. 
1  have  tried  trade,  but  I  found  that  it  would  take  ten 
years  to  get  under  way  in  that,  and  that  then  I  should 
probably  be  on  my  way  to  the  devil."  ^Nothing,  in- 
deed, can  surpass  his  scorn  for  all  so-called  business. 
Upon  that  subject  gall  squirts  from  him  at  a  touch.) 
"  The  whole  enterprise  of  this  nation  is  not  illustrated 
by  aTKought, "  he  writes;  "it  is  not  warmed  by  a 
sentiment  ;  there  is  nothing  in  it  for  which  a  man 
should  lay  down  his  life,  nor  even  his  gloves."  And 
again  :  "  If  our  merchants  did  not  most  of  them  fail, 
and  the  banks  too,  my  faith  in  the  old  laws  of  this 


144  HENR  V  DA  VID   Til  ORE  A  U  : 

world  would  be  staggered.  The  statement  that  ninety- 
six  in  a  hundred  doing  such  business  surely  break 
down  is  perhaps  the  sweetest  fact  that  statistics  have 
revealed."  The  wish  was  probably  father  to  the  fig- 
ures ;  but  there  is  something  enlivening  in  a  hatred  of 
so  genuine  a  brand,  hot  as  Corsican  revenge,  and 
sneering  like  Voltaire. 

Pencils,  school-keeping,  and  trade  being  thus  dis- 
carded one  after  another,  Thoreau,  with  a  stroke  of 
strategy,  turned  the  position.  He  saw  his  way  to  get 
his  board  and  lodging  for  practically  nothing  ;  and 
Admetus  never  got  less  work  out  of  any  servant  since 
the  world  began.  It  was  his  ambition  to  be  an 
oriental  philosopher  ;  but  he  was  always  a  very  Yankee 
sort  of  oriental.  Even  in  the  peculiar  attitude  in 
which  he  stood  to  money,  his  system  of  personal 
economics,  as  we  may  call  it,  he  displayed  a  vast 
amount  of  truly  down-East  calculation,  and  he  adopted 
poverty  like  a  piece  of  business.  Yet  his  system  is 
based  on  one  or  two  ideas  which,  I  believe,  come 
naturally  to  all  thoughtful  youths,  and  are  only 
pounded  out  of  them  by  city  uncles.  Indeed,  some- 
thing essentially  youthful  distinguishes  all  Thoreau' s 
knock-down  blows  at  current  opinion.  Like  the 
posers  of  a  child,  they  leave  the  orthodox  in  a  kind  of 
speechless  agony.  These  know  the  thing  is  nonsense. 
They  are  sure  there  must  be  an  answer,  yet  somehow 
cannot  fmd  it.  So  it  is  with  his  system  of  economy. 
He  cuts  through  the  subject  on  so  new  a  plane  that 
the  accepted  arguments  apply  no  longer  ;  he  attacks 


HIS  CHARACTER  AND  OPINIONS.         145 

it  in  a  new  dialect  where  there  are  no  catchwords  ready 
made  for  the  defender  ;  after  you  have  been  boxing 
for  years  on  a  pohte,  gladiatorial  convention,  here  is 
an  assailant  who  does  not  scruple  to  hit  below  the  belt. 
"  The  cost  of  a  thing,"  says  he,  i,"  is  the  amount  of 
zvhat  I  will  call  life  which  is  required  to  be  exchanged 
for  it,  immediately  or  in  the  long  run. "  I  have  been 
accustomed  to  put  it  to  myself,  perhaps  more  clearly, 
that  f the  price  we  have  to  pay  for  money  is  paid  in 
liberty. ;  Between  these  two  ways  of  it,  at  least,  the 
reader  will  probably  not  fail  to  find  a  third  definition 
of  his  own  ;  and  it  follows,  on  one  or  other,fthat  a 
man  may  pay  too  dearly  for  his  livelihood,  by  giving, 
in  Thoreau's  terms,  his  whole  life  for  it,  or,  in  mine, 
bartering  for  it  the  whole  of  his  available  liberty,  and 
becoming  a  slave  till  death.')  There  are  two  questions 
to  be  considered — the  quality  of  what  we  buy,  and  the 
price  we  have  to  pay  for  it.  Do  you  want  a  thousand 
a  year,  a  two  thousand  a  year,  or  a  ten  thousand  a 
year  livelihood  ?  and  can  you  afford  the  one  you 
want }  It  is  a  matter  of  taste  ;  it  is  not  in  the  least 
degree  a  question  of  duty,  though  commonly  supposed 
so.  But  there  is  no  authority  for  that  view  anywhere. 
It  is  nowhere  in  the  Bible.  It  is  true  that  we  might 
do  a  vast  amount  of  good  if  we  were  wealthy,  but  it  is 
also  highly  improbable  ;  not  many  do  ;  and  the  art 
of  growing  rich  is  not  only  quite  distinct  from  that  of 
doing  good,  but  the  practice  of  the  one  does  not  at  all 
train  a  man  for  practising  the  other.  "  Money  might 
be  of  great  service  to  me,"  writes  Thoreau  ;   "  but 


146  HENR  V  DA  VJD  THOREA  U  : 

the  difficulty  now  is  that  I  do  not  improve  my  oppor- 
tunities, and  therefore  I  am  not  prepared  to  have  my 
opportunities  increased."  It  is  a  mere  illusion  that, 
above  a  certain  income,  the  personal  desires  will  be 
satisfied  and  leave  a  wider  margin  for  the  generous 
impulse.  It  is  as  difficult  to  be  generous,  or  anything 
else,  except  perhaps  a  member  of  Parliament,  on  thirty 
thousand  as  on  two  hundred  a  year. 

Now  Thoreau's  tastes  were  well  defined.      He  loved 


to  be  free,  to  be  master  of  his  times  and  seasons,  tq, 
indulge  the  mind  rather  than  the  body  ;  he  prefened 
long  rambles  to  rich  dinners,  his  own  reflection^  to 
the  consideration  of  society,  and  an  easy,  calm,  urP^^ 
fettered,"  active  life  among  green  trees  to  dull  toiling 
aTthe  counter  of  a  bank.)  And  such  being  his  inclina- 
tion he  determined  to  gratify  it.  A  poor  man  must 
save  off  something  ;  he  determined  to  save  off  his 
livelihood.  "  When  a  man  has  attained  those  things 
which  are  necessary  to  life,"  he  writes,  "  there  is  an- 
other alternative  than  to  obtain  the  superfluities  ;  he 
may  adventure  on  life  now,  his  vacation  from  humbler 
toil  having  commenced."  Thoreau  would  get  shel- 
ter, some  kind  of  covering  for  his  body,  and  neces- 
sary daily  bread  ;  even  these  he  should  get  as  cheaply 
as  possible  ;  and  then,  his  vacation  from  humbler  toil 
having  commenced,  devote  himself  to  oriental  philoso- 
phers, the  study  of  nature,  and  the  work  of  self- 
improvement. 

Prudence,  which  bids  us  all  go  to  the  ant  for  wis- 
dom and  hoard  against  the  day  of  sickness,  was  not  a 


HIS  CHARACTER  AND  OPINIONS.         147 

favorite  with  Thoreau.  He  preferred  that  other, 
whose  name  is  so  much  misappropriated  :  Faith. 
When  he  had  secured  the  necessaries  of  the  moment, 
he  would  not  reckon  up  possible  accidents' or  torment 

'  i  %■■        l,T»„.        I   1.1. II    »- 

himself  with  trouble  fur  the  future;  He  had  no  tol- 
eration  for  the  man  "  \\\\o  ventures  to  live  only  by  the 
aid  of  the  mutual  insurance  company,  which  has 
promised  to  bury  him  decently."  He  would  trust 
himself  a  little  to  the  world.  "We  may  safely  trust 
a  good  deal  more  than  we  do,"  says  he.  "  How 
much  is  not  done  by  us  I  or  what  if  we  had  been 
taken  sick  .?"  And  then,  with  a  stab  of  satire,  he  de- 
scribes contemporary  mankind  in  a  phrase  :  "  All  the 
day  long  on  the  alert,  at  night  we  unwillingly  say  our 
prayers  and  commit  ourselves  to  uncertainties."  It 
is  not  likely  that  the  public  will  be  much  affected  by 
Thoreau,  when  they  blink  the  direct  injunctions  of 
the  religion  they  profess  ;  and  yet,  whether  we  will  or 
no,  we  make  the  same  hazardous  ventures  ;  we  back 
our  own  health  and  the  honesty  of  our  neighbors  for 
all  that  we  are  worth  ;  and  it  is  chilling  to  think  how 
many  must  lose  their  wager. 

In  1845,  twenty-eight  years  old,  an  age  by  which 
the  liveliest  have  usually  declined  into  some  conform- 
ity with  the  world,  Thoreau,  with  a  capital  of  some- 
thing less  than  five  pounds  and  a  borrowed  axe,  walked 
forth  into  the  woods  by  Walden  Pond,  and  began  his 
new  experiment  in  life.  He  built  himself  a  dwelling, 
and  returned  the  axe,  he  says  with  characteristic  and 
workman-like   pride,  sharper   than  when  he  borrowed 


148  HENRY  DAVID  THOREAU  : 

it ;  he  reclaimed  a  patch,  where  he  cultivated  beans, 
peas,  potatoes,  and  sweet  corn  ;  he  had  his  bread  to 
bake,  his  farm  to  dig,  and  for  the  matter  of  six  weeks 
in  the  summer  he  worked  at  surveying,  carpentry,  or 
some  other  of  his  numerous  dexterities,  for  hire.  For 
more  than  five  years,  this  was  all  that  he  required  to 
do  for  his  support,  and  he  had  the  winter  and  most  of 
the  summer  at  his  entire  disposal.  For  six  weeks  of 
occupation,  a  little  cooking  and  a  little  gentle  hygienic 
gardening,  the  man,  you  may  say,  had  as  good  as 
stolen  his  livelihood.  Or  we  must  rather  allow  that 
he  had  done  far  better  ;  for  the  thief  himself  is  contin- 
ually and  busily  occupied  ;  and  even  one  born  to  in- 
herit a  million  will  have  more  calls  upon  his  time  than 
Thoreau.  Well  might  he  say,  "  What  old  people 
tell  you  you  cannot  do,  you  try  and  find  you  can. ' ' 
And  how  surprising  is  his  conclusion  :  "I  am  con- 
vinced that  to  viaiiitain  oneself  on  this  earth  is  not  a 
hardship,  but  a  pastime,  if  we  will  live  simply  and 
wisely  ;  as  the  pursuits  of  simpler  nations  are  still 
the  sports  of  the  more  artificial. 

When  he  had  enough  of  that  kind  of  life,  he  showed 
the  same  simplicity  in  giving  it  up  as  in  beginning  it. 
There  are  some  who  could  have  done  the  one,  but, 
vanity  forbidding,  not  the  other  ;  and  that  is  perhaps 
the  story  of  the  hermits  ;  but  Thoreau  made  no  fetich 
of  his  own  example,  and  did  what  he  wanted  squarely. 
Aiid  five  years  is  long  enough  for  an  experiment  and 
to  prove  the  success  of  transcendental  Yankeeism.  It 
is  not   his   frugality  which    is  worthy  of   note  ;  for,  to 


HIS  CHARACTER  AND  OPINIONS.         149 

begin  with,  that  was  inborn,  and  therefore  inimitable 
by  others  who  are  differently  constituted  ;  and  again, 
it  was  no  new  thing,  but  has  often  been  equalled  by 
poor  Scotch  students  at  the  universities.  The  point 
is  the  sanity  of  his  view  of  life,  and  the  insight  with 
which  he  recognized  the  position  of  money,  and 
thought  out  for  himself  the  problem  of  riches  and  a 
livelihood.  Apart  from  his  eccentricities,  he  had  per- 
ceived, and  was  acting  on,  a  truth  of  juniyersal  ampli- 
cation. For  money  enters  in  two  different  characters 
into  the  scheme  of  life.  .^^  A  certain  amount,  varying 
with  the  number  and  empire  of  our  desires,  is  a  true 
necessary  to  each  one  of  us  in  the  present  order  of  so- 
ciety ;  but  beyond  that  amount,  money  is  a  commod- 
ity to  be  bought  or  not  to  be  bought,  a  luxury  in 
which  we  may  either  indulge  or  stint  ourselves,  like 
any  other.  )  A^id  there  are  many  luxuries  that  we  may 
legitimately  prefer  to  it,  such  as  a  grateful  conscience, 
a  country  life,  or  the  woman  of  our  inclination. 
!  Trite,  flat,  and  obvious  as  this  conclusion  may  appear, 
we  have  only  to  look  round  us  in  society  to  see  how 
scantily  it  has  been  recognized  ;  and  perhaps  even 
ourselves,  after  a  little  reflection,  may  decide  to  spend 
a  trifle  less  for  money,  and  indulge  ourselves  a  trifle 
more  in  the  article  of  freedom. 


150  HENR  V  DA  VID   TIIOREA  U : 

III. 

"  To  have  done  anything  by  which  you  earned 
money  merely,"  says  Thoreau,  "is  to  be"  (have 
been,  he  means)  "  idle  and  worse."  There  are  two 
passages  in  his  letters,  both,  oddly  enough,  relating  to 
firewood,  which  must  be  brought  together  to  be  rightly 
understood.  So  taken,  they  contain  between  them 
the  marrow  of  all  good  sense  on  the  subject  of  work 
in  its  relation  to  something  broader  than  mere  liveli- 
hood. Here  is  the  first  :  "  I  suppose  I  have  burned 
up  a  good-sized  tree  to-night — and  for  what  ?  I  set- 
tled with  Mr.  Tarbell  for  it  the  other  day  ;  but  that 
wasn't  the  final  settlement.  I  got  off  cheaply  from 
him.  At  last  one  will  say  :  '  Let  us  see,  how  much 
wood  did  you  burn,  sir .? '  And  I  shall  shudder  to 
think  that  the  next  question  will  be,  '  What  did  you 
do  while  you  were  warm  ? '  "  Even  after  we  have 
settled  with  Admetus  in  the  person  of  Mr.  Tarbell, 
there  comes,  you  see,  a  further  question.  It  is  not 
enough  to  have  earned  our  livelihood.  Either  the 
earning  itself  should  have  been  serviceable  to  man- 
kind, or  something  else  must  follow.  To  live  is 
sometimes  very  difiicult,  but  it  is  never  meritorious  in 
itself ;  and  we  must  have  a  reason  to  allege  to  our 
own  conscience  why  we  should  continue  to  exist  upon 
this  crowded  earth.  If_  Thoreau  had  simply  dwelt  iri 
his  house  at  Walden,  a  lover  of  trees,  birds,  and  fishes, 
and 'the  open  air  and  virtue,  a  reader  of  wise  books, 
an  idle,  selfish  self-improver,  he  would  have  managed  •. 


HIS  CHARACTER  AND  OPINIONS.         15 1 

to  cheat  Admetus,  but,  to  cling  to  metaphor,  the  devil 
would  have  had  him  in  the  end.  Those  who  can 
avoid  toil  altogether  and  dwell  in  the  Arcadia  of  pri- 
vate means,  and  even  those  who  can,  by  abstinence, 
reduce  the  necessary  amount  of  it  to  some  six  weeks 
a  year,  having  the  more  liberty,  have  only  the  higher 
moral  obligation  to  be  up  and  doing  in  the  interest  of 
man. 

The  second  passage  is  this  :  **  There  is  a  far  more 
important  and  warming  heat,  commonly  lost,  which 
precedes  the  burning  of  the  wood.  It  is  the  smoke 
of  industry,  which  is  incense.  I  had  been  so  thor- 
oughly warmed  in  body  and  spirit,  that  when  at  length 
my  fuel  was  housed,  I  came  near  selling  it  to  the  ash- 
man, as  if  I  had  extracted  all  its  heat."  Industry  is, 
in  itself  and  when  properly  chosen,  delightful  and 
profitable  to  the  worker  ;  and  when  your  toil  has  been 
a  pleasure,  you  have  not,  as  Thoreau  says,  "  earned 
money  merely,"  but  money,  health,  delight,  and 
moral  profit,  all  in  one.  "  We  must  heap  up  a  great 
pile  of  doing  for  a  small  diameter  of  being,"  he  says 
in  another  place  ;  and  then  exclaims,  "  How  admi- 
rably the  artist  is  made  to  accomplish  his  self-culture 
by  devotion  to  his  art  !"  We  may  escape  uncon- 
genial toil,  only  to  devote  ourselves  to  that  which  is 
congenial.  It  is  only  to  transact  some  higher  busi- 
ness that  even  Apollo  dare  play  the  truant  from  Ad- 
metus. We  must  all  work  for  the  sake  of  work  ;  we 
must  all  work,  as  Thoreau  says  again,  in  any  "ab- 
sorbing pursuit — it  does  not  much  matter  what,  so  it 


152  HENR  Y  DA  VI D   THOREA  U  : 

be  honest;"  but  the  most  profitable  work  is  that 
which  combines  into  one  continued  effort  the  largest 
proportion  of  the  powers  and  desires  of  a  man's  na- 
ture ;  that  into  which  he  will  plunge  with  ardor,  and 
from  which  he  will  desist  with  reluctance  ;  in  which 
he  will  know  the  weariness  of  fatigue,  but  not  that  of 
satiety  ;  and  which  will  be  ever  fresh,  pleasing,  and 
stimulating  to  his  taste.  Such  work  holds  a  man  to- 
gether, braced  at  all  points  ;  it  does  not  suffer  him  to 
doze  or  wander  ;  it  keeps  him  actively  conscious  of 
himself,  yet  raised  among  superior  interests  ;  it  gives 
him  the  profit  of  industry  with  the  pleasures  of  a  pas- 
time. This  is  what  his  art  should  be  to  the  true  artist, 
and  that  to  a  degree  unknown  in  other  and  less  in- 
timate pursuits.  For  other  professions  stand  apart 
from  the  human  business  of  life  ;  but  an  art  has  its 
seat  at  the  centre  of  the  artist's  doings  and  sufferings, 
deals  directly  with  his  experiences,  teaches  him  the 
lessons  of  his  own  fortunes  and  mishaps,  and  becomes 
a  part  of  his  biography.     So  says  Goethe  : 

"  Spat  erklingt  was  friih  erklang  ; 
Gliick  und  Ungllick  wird  Gesang." 

Now  Thoreau's  art  was  literature  ;  and  it  was  one 
of  which  he  had  conceived  most  ambitiously.  He 
loved  and  believed  in  good  books.  He  said  well, 
"  Life  is  not  habitually  seen  from  any  common  plat- 
form so  truly  and  unexaggerated  as  in  the  light  of  lit- 
erature."  But  the  literature  he  loved  was  of  the 
heroic  order.      "  Books,  not  which  afford  us  a  cower- 


HIS  CHARACTER  AND  OPINIONS.         153 

ing  enjoyment,  but  in  which  each  thought  is  of  un- 
usual daring  ;  such  as  an  idle  man  cannot  read,  and 
a  timid  one  would  not  be  entertained  by,  which  even 
make  us  dangerous  to  existing  institutions — such  I 
call  good  books."  He  did  not  think  them  easy  to  be 
read.  "  The  heroic  books, ' '  he  says,  ' '  even  if  printed 
in  the  character  of  our  mother- tongue,  will  always  be 
in  a  language  dead  to  degenerate  times  ;  and  we  must 
laboriously  seek  the  meaning  of  each  word  and  line, 
conjecturing  a  larger  sense  than  common  use  permits 
out  of  what  wisdom  and  valor  and  generosity  we  have.  * ' 
Nor  does  he  suppose  that  such  books  are  easily  writ- 
ten. "  Great  prose,  of  equal  elevation,  commands 
our  respect  more  than  great  verse,"  says  he,  "  since 
it  implies  a  more  permanent  and  level  height,  a  life 
more  pervaded  with  the  grandeur  of  the  thought. 
The  poet  often  only  makes  an  irruption,  like  the  Par- 
thian, and  is  off  again,  shooting  while  he  retreats  ; 
but  the  prose  writer  has  conquered  like  a  Roman  and 
settled  colonies. ' '  We  may  ask  ourselves,  almost 
with  dismay,  whether  such  works  exist  at  all  but  in 
the  imagination  of  the  student.  For  the  bulk  of  the 
best  of  books  is  apt  to  be  made  up  with  ballast ;  and 
those  in  which  energy  of  thought  is  combined  with 
any  stateliness  of  utterance  may  be  almost  counted  on 
the  fingers.  Looking  round  in  English  for  a  book 
that  should  answer  Thoreau's  two  demands  of  a  style 
like  poetry  and  sense  that  shall  be  both  original  and 
inspiriting,  I  come  to  Milton's  Areopagilica,  and  can 
name  no  other  instance  for  the  moment.     Two  thing's 


154  HENR  Y  DA  VID  THOREA  U : 

at  least  are  plain  :  that  if  a  man  will  condescend  to 
nothing  more  commonplace  in  the  way  of  reading,  he 
must  not  look  to  have  a  large  library  ;  and  that  if  he 
proposes  himself  to  write  in  a  similar  vein,  he  will  find 
his  work  cut  out  for  him. 

Thoreau  composed  seemingly  while  he  walked,  or 
at  least  exercise  and  composition  were  with  him  inti- 
mately connected  ;  for  we  are  told  that  ' '  the  length 
of  his  walk  uniformly  made  the  length  of  his  writing. " 
He  speaks  in  one  place  of  "  plainness  and  vigor,  the 
ornaments  of  style,"  which  is  rather  too  paradoxical 
to  be  comprehensively  true.  In  another  he  remarks  : 
"  As  for  style  of  writing,  if  one  has  anything  to  say  it 
drops  from  him  simply  as  a  stone  falls  to  the  ground.  " 
We  must  conjecture  a  very  large  sense  indeed  for  the 
phrase  "  if  one  has  anything  to  say."  When  truth 
flows  from  a  man,  fittingly  clothed  in  style  and  with- 
out conscious  effort,  it  is  because  the  effort  has  been 
made  and  the  work  practically  completed  before  he 
sat  down  to  write.  It  is  only  out  of  fulness  of  think- 
ing that  expression  drops  perfect  like  a  ripe  fruit  ;  and 
when  Thoreau  wrote  so  nonchalantly  at  his  desk,  it 
was  because  he  had  been  vigorously  active  during  his 
walk.  For  neither  clearness,  compression,  nor  beauty 
of  language,  come  to  any  living  creature  till  after  a 
busy  and  a  prolonged  acquaintance  with  the  subject 
on  hand.  Easy  writers  are  those  who,  like  \\'alter 
Scott,  choose  to  remain  contented  with  a  less  degree 
of  perfection  than  is  legitimately  within  the  compass 
of   their   powers.     We   hear  of  Shakespeare  and  his 


HIS  CHARACTER  AND  OPINIONS.         155 

clean  manuscript ;  but  in  face  of  the  evidence  of  the 
style  itself  and  of  the  various  editions  of  Hamlet,  this 
merely  proves  that  Messrs.  Hemming  and  Condell 
were  unacquainted  with  the  common  enough  phe- 
nomenon called  a  fair  copy.  He  who  would  recast  a 
tragedy  already  given  to  the  world  must  frequently 
and  earnestly  have  revised  details  in  the  study, 
Thoreau  himself,  and  in  spite  of  his  protestations,  is  an 
instance  of  even  extreme  research  in  one  direction  ; 
and  his  effort  after  heroic  utterance  is  proved  not  only 
by  the  occasional  finish,  but  by  the  determined  exag- 
geration of  his  style.  "  I  trust  you  realize  what  an 
exaggerator  I  am — that  I  lay  myself  out  to  exagger- 
ate," he  writes.  And  again,  hinting  at  the  explana- 
tion :  "  Who  that  has  heard  a  strain  of  music  feared 
lest  he  should  speak  extravagantly  any  more  forever  T' 
And  yet  once  more,  in  his  essay  on  Carlyle,  and  this 
time  with  his  meaning  well  in  hand  :  "  No  truth, 
we  think,  was  ever  expressed  but  with  this  sort  of 
emphasis,  that  for  the  time  there  seemed  to  be  no 
other."  Thus  Thoreau  was  an  exaggerative  and  a 
parabolical  writer,  not  because  he  loved  the  literature 
of  the  East,  but  from  a  desire  that  people  should  under- 
stand and  realize  what  he  was  writing.  He  was  near 
the  truth  upon  the  general  question  ;  but  in  his  own 
particular  method,  it  appears  to  me,  he  wandered. 
Literature  is  not  less  a  conventional  art  than  painting 
or  sculpture  ;  and  it  is  the  least  striking,  as  it  is  the 
most  comprehensive  of  the  three.  To  hear  a  strain  of 
music,  to  see  a  beautiful  woman,  a  river,  a  great  city, 


156  HENK  V  DA  FID   THOREA  U  : 

or  a  starry  night,  is  to  make  a  man  despair  of  his  Lil- 
liputian arts  in  language.  Now,  to  gain  that  emphasis 
which  seems  denied  to  us  by  the  very  nature  of  the 
medium,  the  proper  method  of  literature  is  by  selec- 
tion, which  is  a  kind  of  negative  exaggeration.  It  is 
the  right  of  the  literary  artist,  as  Thoreau  was  on  the 
point  of  seeing,  to  leave  out  whatever  does  not  suit 
his  purpose.  Thus  we  extract  the  pure  gold  ;  and 
thus  the  well-written  story  of  a  noble  life  becomes,  by 
its  very  omissions,  more  thrilling  to  the  reader.  But 
to  go  beyond  this,  like  Thoreau,  and  to  exaggerate 
directly,  is  to  leave  the  saner  classical  tradition,  and 
to  put  the  reader  on  his  guard.  And  when  you  write 
the  whole  for  the  half,  you  do  not  express  your 
thought  more  forcibly,  but  only  express  a  different 
thought  which  is  not  yours. 

Thoreau' s  true  subject  was  the  pursuit  of  self-im- 
provement combined  with  an  unfriendly  criticism  of 
life  as  it  goes  on  in  our  societies  ;  it  is  there  that  he 
best  displays  the  freshness  and  surprising  trenchancy 
of  his  intellect ;  it  is  there  that  his  style  becomes  plain 
and  vigorous,  and  therefore,  according  to  his  own 
formula,  ornamental.  Yet  he  did  not  care  to  follow 
this  vein  singly,  but  must  drop  into  it  by  the  way  in 
books  of  a  different  purport.  WalJen,  or  Life  in  the 
Woods,  A  Week  oji  the  CoTicord  and  Merrimack  Rivers, 
The  Jllaine  Woods, — such  are  the  titles  he  affects. 
He  was  probably  reminded  by  his  delicate  critical  per- 
ception that  the  true  business  of  literature  is  with  nar- 
rative ;  in  reasoned  narrative,  and  there  alone,  that  art 


niS  CHARACTER  AND  OPINIONS.         157 

enjoys  all  its  advantages,  and  suffers  least  from  its  de- 
fects. Dry  precept  and  disembodied  disquisition,  as 
they  can  only  be  read  with  an  effort  of  abstraction, 
can  never  convey  a  perfectly  complete  or  a  perfectly 
natural  impression.  Truth,  even  in  literature,  must 
be  clothed  with  flesh  and  blood,  or  it  cannot  tell  its 
whole  story  to  the  reader.  Hence  the  effect  of  anec- 
dote on  simple  minds  ;  and  hence  good  biographies 
and  works  of  high,  imaginative  art,  are  not  only  far 
more  entertaining,  but  far  more  edifying,  than  books 
of  theory  or  precept.  Now  Thoreau  could  not  clothe 
his  opinions  in  the  garment  of  art,  for  that  was  not 
his  talent ;  but  he  sought  to  gain  the  same  elbow- 
room  for  himself,  and  to  afford  a  similar  relief  to  his 
readers,  by  mingling  his  thoughts  with  a  record  of  ex- 
perience. 

Again,  he  was  a  lover  of  nature.  The  quality  which 
we  should  call  mystery  in  a  painting,  and  which  be- 
longs so  particularly  to  the  aspect  of  the  external  world 
and  to  its  influence  upon  our  feelings,  was  one  which 
he  was  never  weary  of  attempting  to  reproduce  in  his 
books.  The  seeming  significance  of  nature's  appear- 
ances, their  unchanging  strangeness  to  the  senses,  and 
the  thrilling  response  which  they  waken  in  the  mind 
of  man,  continued  to  surprise  and  stimulate  his  spirits. 
It  appeared  to  him,  I  think,  that  if  we  could  only 
write  near  enough  to  the  facts,  and  yet  with  no  pedes- 
trian calm,  but  ardently,  we  might  transfer  the  glamour 
of  reality  direct  upon  our  pages  ;  and  that,  if  it  were 
once  thus  captured  and  expressed,  a  new  and  instruc- 


1 5  8  HENR  V  DA  VI D  THOKEA  L '  .• 

tive  relation  might  appear  between  men's  thoughts  and 
the  phenomena  of  nature.  This  was  the  eagle  that  he 
pursued  all  his  life  long,  like  a  schoolboy  with  a  but- 
terfly net.  Hear  him  to  a  friend  :  "  Let  me  suggest 
a  theme  for  you — to  state  to  yourself  precisely  and 
completely  what  that  walk  over  the  mountains 
amounted  to  for  you,  returning  to  this  essay  again 
and  again  until  you  are  satisfied  that  all  that  was  im- 
portant in  your  experience  is  in  it.  Don't  suppose 
that  you  can  tell  it  precisely  the  first  dozen  times  you 
try,  but  at  'em  again  ;  especially  when,  after  a  suffi- 
cient pause,  you  suspect  that  you  are  touching  the 
heart  or  summit  of  the  matter,  reiterate  your  blows 
there,  and  account  for  the  mountain  to  yourself.  Not 
that  the  story  need  be  long,  but  it  will  take  a  long 
while  to  make  it  short."  Such  was  the  method,  not 
consistent  for  a  man  whose  meanings  were  to  "  drop 
from  him  as  a  stone  falls  to  the  ground."  Perhaps 
the  most  successful  work  that  Thoreau  ever  accom- 
plished in  this  direction  is  to  be  found  in  the  passages 
relating  to  fish  in  the  Week.  These  are  remarkable 
for  a  vivid  truth  of  impression  and  a  happy  suitability 
of  language,  not  frequently  surpassed. 

Whatever  Thoreau  tried  to  do  was  tried  in  fair, 
square  prose,  with  sentences  solidly  built,  and  no  help 
from  bastard  rhythms.  Moreover,  there  is  a  progres- 
sion— I  cannot  call  it  a  progress — in  his  work  toward  a 
more  and  more  strictly  prosaic  level,  until  at  last  he 
sinks  into  the  bathos  of  the  prosy.  Emerson  men- 
tions  having   once   remarked   to   Thoreau  :    "  Who 


HIS  CHARACTER  AND  OPINIONS.         159 

would  not  like  to  write  something  which  all  can  read, 
like  Robinson  Crusoe  P  and  who  does  not  see  with  re- 
gret that  his  page  is  not  solid  with  a  right  materialistic 
treatment  which  delights  everybody  ?"  I  must  say  in 
passing  that  it  is  not  the  right  materialistic  treatment 
which  delights  the  world  in  RobinsuJi,  but  the  romantic 
and  philosophic  interest  of  the  fable.  The  same  treat- 
ment does  quite  the  reverse  of  delighting  us  when  it  is 
applied,  in  Colonel  Jack,  to  the  management  of  a  plan- 
tation. But  I  cannot  help  suspecting  Thoreau  to 
have  been  influenced  either  by  this  identical  remark 
or  by  some  other  closely  similar  in  meaning.  He  be- 
gan to  fall  more  and  more  into  a  detailed  materialistic 
treatment ;  he  went  into  the  business  doggedly,  as 
one  who  should  make  a  guide-book  ;  he  not  only 
chronicled  what  had  been  important  in  his  own  ex- 
perience, but  whatever  might  have  been  important  in 
the  experience  of  anybody  else  ;  not  only  what  had 
affected  him,  but  all  that  he  saw  or  heard.  His  ardor 
had  grown  less,  or  perhaps  it  was  inconsistent  with  a 
right  materialistic  treatment  to  display  such  emotions 
as  he  felt ;  and,  to  complete  the  eventful  change,  he 
chose,  from  a  sense  of  moral  dignity,  to  gut  these 
later  works  of  the  saving  quality  of  humor.  He  was 
not  one  of  those  authors  who  have  learned,  in  his  own 
words,  "  to  leave  out  their  dulness."  He  inflicts  his 
full  quantity  upon  the  reader  in  such  books  as  Cape 
Cod,  or  The  Yankee  m  Catiada.  Of  the  latter  he  con- 
fessed that  he  had  not  managed  to  get  much  of  him- 
self into  it.     Heaven  knows  he  had  not,  nor  yet  much 


l6o  HENR  Y  DA  VI D  THOREA  U : 

of  Canada,  we  may  hope.  "  Nothing, "  he  says  some- 
where, "  can  shock  a  brave  man  but  dulness. "  Well, 
there  are  few  spots  more  shocking  to  the  brave  than 
the  pages  of  The  Yankee  in  Canada. 

There  are  but  three  books  of  his  that  will  be  read 
with  much  pleasure  :  the  Week,  Walden,  and  the  col- 
lected letters.  As  to  his  poetry,  Emerson's  word  shall 
suffice  for  us,  it  is  so  accurate  and  so  prettily  said  : 
**  The  thyme  and  marjoram  are  not  yet  honey."  In 
this,  as  in  his  prose,  he  relied  greatly  on  the  goodwill 
of  the  reader,  and  wrote  throughout  in  faith.  It  was 
an  exercise  of  faith  to  suppose  that  many  would  under- 
stand the  sense  of  his  best  work,  or  that  any  could  be 
exhilarated  by  the  dreary  chronicling  of  his  worst. 
"  But,"  as  he  says,  "  the  gods  do  not  hear  any  rude 
or  discordant  sound,  as  we  learn  from  the  echo  ;  and 
I  know  that  the  nature  toward  which  I  launch  these 
sounds  is  so  rich  that  it  will  modulate  anew  and 
wonderfully  improve  my  rudest  strain. ' ' 

IV. 

"What  means  the  fact,"  he  cries,  "that  a  soul 
which  has  lost  all  hope  for  itself  can  inspire  in  another 
listening  soul  such  an  infinite  confidence  in  it,  even 
while  it  is  expressing  its  despair.?"  The  question  is 
an  echo  and  an  illustration  of  the  words  last  quoted  ; 
and  it  forms  the  key-note  of  his  thoughts  on  friend- 
ship. No  one  else,  to  my  knowledge,  has  spoken  in 
so  high  and  just  a  spirit  of  the  kindly  relations  ;  and 


HIS  CHARACTER  AND  OPINIONS.         i6i 

I  doubt  whether  it  be  a  drawback  that  these  lessons 
should  come  from  one  in  many  ways  so  unfitted  to 
be  a  teacher  in  this  branch.  The  very  coldness  and 
egoism  of  his  own  intercourse  gave  him  a  clearer  in- 
sight into  the  intellectual  basis  of  our  warm,  mutual 
tolerations  ;  and  testimony  to  their  worth  comes  with 
added  force  from  one  who  was  solitary  and  disoblig- 
ing, and  of  whom  a  friend  remarked,  with  equal  wit 
and  wisdom,  "  I  love  Henry,  but  I  cannot  like  him." 

He  can  hardly  be  persuaded  to  make  any  distinction 
between  love  and  friendship  ;  in  such  rarefied  and 
freezing  air,  upon  the  mountain- tops  of  meditation, 
had  he  taught  himself  to  breathe.  He  was,  indeed, 
too  accurate  an  observer  not  to  have  remarked  that 
' '  there  exists  already  a  natural  disinterestedness  and 
liberality"  between  men  and  women;  yet,  he 
thought,  "  friendship  is  no  respecter  of  sex."  Per- 
haps there  is  a  sense  in  which  the  words  are  true  ;  but 
they  were  spoken  in  ignorance  ;  and  perhaps  we  shall 
have  put  the  matter  most  correctly,  if  we  call  love  a 
foundation  for  a  nearer  and  freer  degree  of  friendship 
than  can  be  possible  without  it.  Yox  there  are  deli- 
cacies, eternal  between  persons  of  the  same  sex,  which 
are  melted  and  disappear  in  the  warmth  of  love. 

To  both,  if  they  are  to  be  right,  he  attributes  the 
same  nature  and  condition.  "  We  are  not  what  we 
are,"  says  he,  "  nor  do  we  treat  or  esteem  each  other 
for  such,  but  for  what  we  are  capable  of  being." 
"  A  friend  is  one  who  incessantly  pays  us  the  compli- 
ment of  expecting  all  the  virtues  from  us,  and  who 


1 6  2  HENR  Y  DA  VI D  THOREA  U : 

can  appreciate  them  in  us."  "  The  friend  asks  no 
return  but  that  his  friend  will  rehgiously  accept  and 
wear  and  not  disgrace  his  apotheosis  of  him. "  "It 
is  the  merit  and  preservation  of  friendship  that  it  takes 
place  on  a  level  higher  than  the  actual  characters  of 
the  parties  would  seem  to  warrant.' '  This  is  to  put 
friendship  on  a  pedestal  indeed  ;  and  yet  the  root  of 
the  matter  is  there  ;  and  the  last  sentence,  in  particu- 
lar, is  like  a  light  in  a  dark  place,  and  makes  many 
mysteries  plain.  We  are  different  with  different 
friends  ;  yet  if  we  look  closely  we  shall  find  that  every 
such  relation  reposes  on  some  particular  apotheosis  of 
oneself ;  with  each  friend,  although  we  could  not  dis- 
tinguish it  in  words  from  any  other,  we  have  at  least 
one  special  reputation  to  preserve  :  and  it  is  thus  that 
we  run,  when  mortified,  to  our  friend  or  the  woman 
that  we  love,  not  to  hear  ourselves  called  better,  but 
to  be  better  men  m  point  of  fact.  We  seek  this  soci- 
ety to  flatter  ourselves  with  our  own  good  conduct 
And  hence  any  falsehood  in  the  relation,  any  incom- 
plete or  perverted  understanding,  will  spoil  even  the 
pleasure  of  these  visits.  Thus  says  Thoreau  again  : 
"Only  lovers  know  the  value  of  truth."  And  yet 
again  :  "  They  ask  for  words  and  deeds,  when  a  true 
relation  is  word  and  deed." 

But  it  follows  that  since  they  are  neither  of  them  so 
good  as  the  other  hopes,  and  each  is,  in  a  very  hon- 
est manner,  playing  a  part  above  his  powers,  such 
an  intercourse  must  often  be  disappointing  to  both. 
"  We  may  bid  farewell  sooner  than  complain,"  says 


HIS  CHARACTER  AND  OPINIONS.         163 

Thoreau,  ' '  for  our  complaint  is  too  well  grounded  to 
be  uttered."  "  We  have  not  so  good  a  right  to  hate 
any  as  our  friend." 

"  It  were  treason  to  our  love 
And  a  sin  to  God  above, 
One  iota  to  abate 
Of  a  pure,  impartial  hate." 

Love  is  not  blind,  nor  yet  forgiving.  "O  yes,  be- 
lieve me,"  as  the  song  says,  "  Love  has  eyes  !"  The 
nearer  the  intimacy,  the  more  cuttingly  do  we  feel  the 
unworthiness  of  those  we  love  ;  and  because  you  love 
one,  and  would  die  for  that  love  to-morrow,  you  have 
not  forgiven,  and  you  never  will  forgive,  that  friend's 
misconduct.  If  you  want  a  person's  faults,  go  to 
those  who  love  him.  They  will  not  tell  you,  but  they 
know.  And  herein  lies  the  magnanimous  courage  of 
love,  that  it  endures  this  knowledge  without  change. 

It  required  a  cold,  distant  personality  like  that  of 
Thoreau,  perhaps,  to  recognize  and  certainly  to  utter 
this  truth  ;  for  a  more  human  love  makes  it  a  point 
of  honor  not  to  acknowledge  those  faults  of  which  it 
is  most  conscious.  But  his  point  of  view  is  both 
high  and  dry.  He  has  no  illusions  ;  he  does  not  give 
way  to  love  any  more  than  to  hatred,  but  preserves 
them  both  with  care  like  valuable  curiosities.  A  more 
bald-headed  picture  of  life,  if  I  may  so  express  myself, 
has  seldom  been  presented.  He  is  an  egoist ;  he  does 
not  remember,  or  does  not  think  it  worth  while  to  re- 
mark, that,  in  these  near  intimacies,  we  are  ninety- 
nine  times  disappointed  in  our  beggarly  selves  for  once 


1 64  HENR  Y  DA  VI D  TIIOREA  U  : 

that  we  are  disappointed  in  our  friend  ;  that  it  is  we 
who  seem  most  frequently  undeserving  of  the  love 
that  unites  us  ;  and  that  it  is  by  our  friend's  conduct 
that  we  are  continually  rebuked  and  yet  strengthened 
for  a  fresh  endeavor.  Thoreau  is  dry,  priggish,  and 
selfish.  It  is  profit  he  is  after  in  these  intimacies  ; 
moral  profit,  certainly,  but  still  profit  to  himself.  It 
you  will  be  the  sort  of  friend  I  want,  he  remarks 
naively,  "  my  education  cannot  dispense  with  your  so- 
ciety." His  education  !  as  though  a  friend  were  a 
dictionary.  And  with  all  this,  not  one  word  about 
pleasure,  or  laughter,  or  kisses,  or  any  quality  of 
fiesh  and  blood.  It  was  not  inappropriate,  surely, 
that  he  had  such  close  relations  with  the  fish.  We 
can  understand  the  friend  already  quoted,  when  he 
cried  :  "  As  for  taking  his  arm,  I  would  as  soon 
think  of  taking  the  arm  of  an  elm -tree  !" 

As  a  matter  of  fact  he  experienced  but  a  broken 
enjoyment  in  his  intimacies.  He  says  he  has  been 
perpetually  on  the  brink  of  the  sort  of  intercourse  he 
wanted,  and  yet  never  completely  attained  it.  And 
what  else  had  he  to  expect  when  he  would  not,  in  a 
happy  phrase  of  Carlyle's,  "nestle  down  into  it"? 
Truly,  so  it  will  be  always  if  you  only  stroll  in  upon 
your  friends  as  you  might  stroll  in  to  see  a  cricket 
match  ;  and  even  then  not  simply  for  the  pleasure  of 
the  thing,  but  with  some  after-thought  of  self-improve- 
ment, as  though  you  had  come  to  the  cricket  match 
to  bet.  It  was  his  theory  that  people  saw  each  other 
too  frequently,  so  that  their  curiosity  was  not  properly 


HIS  CHARACTER  AND  OPINIONS.         165 

whetted,  nor  had  they  anything  fresh  to  communicate  ; 
but  friendship  must  be  something  else  than  a  society 
for  mutual  improvement — indeed,  it  must  only  be 
that  by  the  way,  and  to  some  extent  unconsciously  ; 
and  if  Thoreau  had  been  a  man  instead  of  a  manner 
of  elm-tree,  he  would  have  felt  that  he  saw  his  friends 
too  seldom,  and  have  reaped  benefits  unknown  to  his 
philosophy  from  a  more  sustained  and  easy  intercourse. 
We  might  remind  him  of  his  own  words  about  love  : 
"  We  should  have  no  reserve  ;  we  should  give  the 
whole  of  ourselves  to  that  business.  But  commonly 
men  have  not  imagination  enough  to  be  thus  employed 
about  a  human  being,  but  must  be  coopering  a  barrel, 
forsooth."  Ay,  or  reading  oriental  philosophers.  It 
is  not  the  nature  of  the  rival  occupation,  it  is  the  fact 
that  you  suffer  it  to  be  a  rival,  that  renders  loving  in- 
timacy impossible.  Nothing  is  given  for  nothing  in 
this  world  ;  there  can  be  no  true  love,  even  on  your 
own  side,  without  devotion  ;  devotion  is  the  exercise 
of  love,  by  which  it  grows  ;  but  if  you  will  give 
enough  of  that,  if  you  wdll  pay  the  price  in  a  sufficient 
"amount  of  what  you  call  life, "  why  then,  indeed, 
whether  with  wife  or  comrade,  you  may  have  months 
and  even  years  of  such  easy,  natural,  pleasurable,  and 
yet  improving  intercourse  as  shall  make  time  a  mo- 
ment and  kindness  a  delight. 

The  secret  of  his  retirement  lies  not  in  misanthropy, 
of  which  he  had  no  tincture,  but  part  in  his  engross- 
ing design  of  self-improvement  and  part  in  the  real 
deficiencies  of    social  intercourse.     He  was  not   so 


1 66  HENRY  DAVID  THOREAU : 

much  difficult  about  his  fellow  human  beings  as  he 
could  not  tolerate  the  terms  of  their  association.  He 
could  take  to  a  man  for  any  genuine  qualities,  as  we 
see  by  his  admirable  sketch  of  the  Canadian  woodcut- 
ter in  Walden  ;  but  he  would  not  consent,  in  his  own 
words,  to  ' '  feebly  fabulate  and  paddle  in  the  social 
slush."  It  seemed  to  him,  I  think,  that  society  is 
precisely  the  reverse  of  friendship,  in  that  it  takes  place 
on  a  lower  level  than  the  characters  of  any  of  the 
parties  would  warrant  us  to  expect.  The  society  talk 
of  even  the  most  brilliant  man  is  of  greatly  less  ac- 
count than  what  you  will  get  from  him  in  (as  the 
French  say)  a  little  committee.  And  Thoreau  wanted 
geniality  ;  he  had  not  enough  of  the  superficial,  even 
at  command  ;  he  could  not  swoop  into  a  parlor  and, 
in  the  naval  phrase,  "  cut  out"  a  human  being  from 
that  dreary  port ;  nor  had  he  inclination  for  the  task. 
I  suspect  he  loved  books  and  nature  as  well  and  near 
as  warmly  as  he  loved  his  fellow-creatures, — a  melan- 
choly, lean  degeneration  of  the  human  character. 

"  As  for  the  dispute  about  solitude  and  society,"  he 
thus  sums  up  :  "  Any  comparison  is  impertinent.  It 
is  an  idling  down  on  the  plain  at  the  base  of  the  moun- 
tain instead  of  climbing  steadily  to  its  top.  Of  course 
you  will  be  glad  of  all  the  society  you  can  get  to  go 
up  with  ?  Will  you  go  to  glory  with  me  ?  is  the  bur- 
den of  the  song.  It  is  not  that  we  love  to  be  alone, 
but  that  we  love  to  soar,  and  when  we  do  soar  the 
company  grows  thinner  and  thinner  till  there  is  none 
at  all.     It  is  either  the  tribune  on  the  plain,  a  sermon 


HIS  CHARACTER  AND  OPINIONS.         167 

on  the  mount,  or  a  very  private  ecstasy  still  higher  up. 
Use  all  the  society  that  will  abet  you."  But  surely  it 
is  no  very  extravagant  opinion  that  it  is  better  to  give 
than  to  receive,  to  serve  than  to  use  our  companions  ; 
and  above  all,  where  there  is  no  question  of  service 
upon  either  side,  that  it  is  good  to  enjoy  their  com- 
pany like  a  natural  man.  It  is  curious  and  in  some 
ways  dispiriting  that  a  writer  may  be  always  best  cor- 
rected out  of  his  own  mouth  ;  and  so,  to  conclude, 
here  is  another  passage  from  Thoreau  which  seem.s 
aimed  directly  at  himself  :  "  Do  not  be  too  moral  ; 
you  may  cheat  yourself  out  of  much  life  so,  .  .  .  All 
fables,  indeed,  have  their  morals  j  but  the  innocent  en- 
joy the  story, ' ' 

V. 

"  The  only  obligation,"  says  he,  "  which  I  have  a 
right  to  assume  is  to  do  at  any  time  what  I  think 
right."  "  Why  should  we  ever  go  abroad,  even  across 
the  way,  to  ask  a  neighbor's  advice  ?''  "  There  is  a 
rieSfer  neighbor  within,  who  is  incessantly  telling  us 
how  we  should  behave.  But  zve  wait  for  the  neigh- 
bor without  to  tell  us  of  some  false,  easier  zvay." 
"  The  greater  part  of  what  my  neighbors  call  good  I 
believe  in  my  soul  to  be  bad. ' '  To  be  what  we  are, 
and  to  become  what  we  are  capable  of  becoming,  is 
the  only  end  of  life.  It  is  "  when  we  fall  behind  our- 
selves" that  "  we  are  cursed  with  duties  and  the  neg- 
lect of  duties."  "  I  love  the  wild,"  he  says,  "  not 
less  than  the  good."     And  again:  "The  life  of  a 


1 68  HExXR  Y  DA  VID  THOREA  U  : 

good  man  will  hardly  improve  us  more  than  the  life 
of  a  freebooter,  for  the  inevitable  laws  appear  as  plainly 
in  the  infringement  as  in  the  observance,  and  "  (mark 
this)  "  our  lives  are  sustained  by  a  nearly  equal  ex- 
pense of  virtue  of  some  kind.'"  Even  although  he 
were  a  prig,  it  will  be  owned  he  could  announce  a 
startling  doctrine,  "As  for  doing  good,"  he  writes 
elsewhere,  "  that  is  one  of  the  professions  that  are 
full.  INIoreover,  I  have  tried  it  fairly,  and,  strange  as 
it.  may  seem,  am  satisfied  that  it  does  not  agree  with 
my  constitution.  Probably  I  should  not  conscien- 
tiously and  deliberately  forsake  my  particular  calling 
to  do  the  good  which  society  demands  of  me,  to  save 
the  universe  from  annihilation  ;  and  I  believe  that  a 
like  but  infinitely  greater  steadfastness  elsewhere  is  all 
that  now  preserves  it.  If  you  should  ever  be  betrayed 
into  any  of  these  philanthropies,  do  not  let  your  left 
hand  know  what  your  right  hand  does,  for  it  is  not 
worth  knowing."  Elsewhere  he  returns  upon  the 
subject,  and  explains  his  meaning  thus  :  "  If  I  ever 
did  a  man  any  good  in  their  sense,  of  course  it  was 
something  exceptional  and  insignificant  compared  with 
the  good  or  evil  I  am  constantly  doing  by  being  what 
I  am." 

There  is  a  rude  nobility,  like  that  of  a  barbarian 
king,"  nTlHTs^'unshaken  confidence  in  himself  and  in- 
difference to  the  wants,  thoughts,  or  sufferings  of 
others.  In  his  whole  works  I  find  no  trace  of  pit)^ 
This  was  partly  the  result  of  theory,  for  he  held  the 
world  too  mysterious  to  be  criticised,  and  asks  con- 


HIS  CHARACTER  AND  OPINIONS.         169 

clusively  :  "  What  right  have  I  to  grieve  who  have 
not  ceased  to  wonder  ?' '  But  it  sprang  still  more  from 
constitutional  indifference  and  superiority  ;  and  he 
grew  up  healthy,  composed,  and  unconscious  from 
among  life's  horrors,  like  a  green  bay-tree  from  a  field 
of  battle.  It  was  from  this  lack  in  himself  that  he 
failed  to  do  justice  to  the  spirit  of  Christ  ;  for  while  he 
could  glean  more  meaning  from  individual  precepts 
than  any  score  of  Christians,  yet  he  conceived  life  in 
such  a  different  hope,  and  viewed  it  with  such  contrary 
emotions,  that  the  sense  and  purport  of  the  doctrine 
as  a  whole  seems  to  have  passed  him  by  or  left  him 
unimpressed.  He  could  understand  the  idealism  of 
the  Christian  view,  but  he  was  himself  so  unaffectedly 
unhuman  that  he  did  not  recognize  the  human  inten- 
tion and  essence  of  that  teaching.  Hence  he  com- 
plained that  Christ  did  not  leave  us  a  rule  that  was 
proper  and  sufficient  for  this  world,  not  having  con- 
ceived the  nature  of  the  rule  that  was  laid  down  ;  for 
things  of  that  character  that  are  sufficiently  unaccept- 
able become  positively  non-existent  to  the  mind.  But 
perhaps  we  shall  best  appreciate  the  defect  in  Thoreau 
by  seeing  it  supplied  in  the  case  of  Whitman.  For 
the  one,  I  feel  confident,  is  the  disciple  of  the  other  ; 
it  is  what  Thoreau  clearly  whispered  that  Whitman  so 
uproariously  bawls  ;  it  is  the  same  doctrine,  but  with 
how  immense  a  difference  !  the  same  argument,  but 
used  to  what  a  new  conclusion  !  Thoreau  had  plenty 
of  humor  until  he  tutored  himself  out  of  it,  and  so 
forfeited  that  best  birthright  of  a  sensible  man  ;  Whit- 


170  HENR  V  DA  VI D   THOREA  U: 

man,  in  that  respect,  seems  to  have  been  sent  into  the 
world  naked  and  unashamed  ;  and  yet  by  a  strange 
consummation,  it  is  the  theory  of  the  former  that  is 
arid,  abstract,  and  claustral.  Of  these  two  philoso- 
phies so  nearly  identical  at  bottom,  the  one  pursues 
Self-improvement — a  churlish,  mangy  dog  ;  the  other 
is  up  with  the  morning,  in  the  best  of  health,  and  fol- 
lowing the  nymph  Happiness,  buxom,  blithe,  and 
debonair.  Happiness,  at  least,  is  not  solitary  ;  it  joys 
to  communicate  ;  it  loves  others,  for  it  depends  on 
them  for  its  existence  ;  it  sanctions  and  encourages  to 
all  delights  that  are  not  unkind  in  themselves  ;  if  it 
lived  to  a  thousand,  it  would  not  make  excision  of  a 
single  humorous  passage  ;  and  while  the  self-improver 
dwindles  toward  the  prig,  and,  if  he  be  not  of  an  ex- 
cellent constitution,  may  even  grow  deformed  into  an 
Obermann,  the  very  name  and  appearance  of  a  happy 
man  breathe  of  good-nature,  and  help  the  rest  of  us 
to  live. 

In  the  case  of  Thoreau,  so  great  a  show  of  doctrine 
demands  some  outcome  in  the  field  of  action.  If 
nothing  were  to  be  done  but  build  a  shanty  beside 
Walden  Pond,  we  have  heard  altogether  too  much  of 
these  declarations  of  independence.  That  the  man 
wrote  some  books  is  nothing  to  the  purpose,  for  the 
same  has  been  done  in  a  suburban  villa.  That  he 
kept  himself  happy  is  perhaps  a  sufficient  excuse,  but 
it  is  disappointing  to  the  reader.  We  may  be  unjust, 
but  when  a  man  despises  commerce  and  philanthropy 
alike,  and  has  views  of  good  so  soaring  that  he  must 


HIS  CHARACTER  AMD  OPINIONS.         171 

take  himself  apart  from  mankind  for  their  cultivation, 
we  will  not  be  content  without  some  striking  act.  It 
was  not  Thoreau's  fault  if  he  were  not  martyred  ;  had 
the  occasion  come,  he  would  have  made  a  noble  end- 
ing. As  it  is,  he  did  once  seek  to  interfere  in  the 
world's  course  :  he  made  one  practical  appearance  on 
the  stage  of  affairs  ;  and  a  strange  one  it  was,  and 
strangely  characteristic  of  the  nobility  and  the  eccen- 
tricity of  the  man.  It  was  forced  on  him  by  his  calm 
but  radical  opposition  to  negro  slavery.  "  Voting  for 
the  right  is  doing  nothing  for  it,  "  he  saw  ;  "  it  is  only 
expressing  to  men  feebly  your  desire  that  it  should 
prevail."  For  his  part,  he  would  not  "for  an  in- 
stant recognize  that  political  organization  for  his  gov- 
ernment which  is  the  5^'^' 5  government  also."  "I 
do  not  hesitate  to  say,"  he  adds,  "  that  those  who  call 
themselves  Abolitiojiists  should.  St.-.Q'^ce  effectu^ljy 
withdraw  their  support,  both  in  person  and  property, 
from  the  government  of  Massachusetts."  That  is 
what  he  did  :  in  1843  he  ceased  to  pay  the  poll-tax. 
The  highway- tax  he  paid,  for  he  said  he  was  as  desir- 
ous to  be  a  good  neighbor  as  to  be  a  bad  subject ;  but 
no  more  poll-tax  to  the  State  of  Massachusetts. 
TTRoreau  had  now  seceded,  and  was  a  polity  unto  him- 
self ;  or,  as  he  explains  it  with  admirable  sense,  "  In 
fact,  I  quietly  declare  war  with  the  State  after  my 
fashion,  though  I  will  still  make  what  use  and  get 
what  advantage  of  her  I  can,  as  is  usual  in  such  cases. " 
He  was  put  in  prison  ;  but  that  was  a  part  of  his  de- 
sign.     "Under  a  government  which    imprisons   any 


172  HENR  Y  DA  VID   THOREA  U : 

unjustly,  the  true  place  for  a  just  man  is  also  a  prison. 
I  know  this  well,  that  if  one  thousand,  if  one  hundred, 
if  ten  men  whom  I  could  name — ay,  if  one  honest 
man,  in  this  State  of  ^Massachusetts,  ceasing  lo  hold 
slaves,  were  actually  to  withdraw  from  this  copartner- 
ship, and  be  locked  up  in  the  county  jail  therefor,  it 
would  be  the  abolition  of  slavery  in  America.  For  it 
matters  not  how  small  the  beginning  may  seem  to  be  ; 
what  is  once  well  done  is  done  forever. ' '  Such  was 
his  theory  of  civil  disobedience^  ' 

And  the  upshot.?  A 'friend  paid  the  tax  for  him  ; 
continued  }-car  hy  yeaflo  pay  it  in  the  sequel  ;  and 
Thoreau  was  free  to  walk  the  woods  unmolested.  It 
was  a  fiasco,  but  to  me  it  does  not  seem  laughable  ; 
even  those  who  joined  in  the  laughter  at  the  moment 
would  be  insensibly  affected  by  this  quaint  instance  of 
a  good  man's  horror  for  injustice.  We  may  compute 
the  worth  of  that  one  night's  imprisonment  as  out- 
weighing half  a  hundred  voters  at  some  subsequent 
election  :  and  if  Thoreau  had  possessed  as  great  a 
power  of  persuasion  as  (let  us  say)  Falstaff,  if  he  had 
counted  a  party  however  small,  if  his  example  had 
been  followed  by  a  hundred  or  by  thirty  of  his  fel- 
lows, I  cannot  but  believe  it  would  have  greatly  pre- 
cipitated the  era  of  freedom  and  justice.  We  feel  the 
misdeeds  of  our  country  with  so  little  fervor,  for  we 
are  not  witnesses  to  the  suffering  they  cause  ;  but 
when  we  see  them  wake  an  active  horror  in  our  fellow- 
man,  when  we  see  a  neighbor  prefer  to  He  in  prison 
rather  than  be  so  inuch_as  passively  implicated  in  tneir 


HIS  CHARACTER  AND  OPINIONS.         173 

perpetration,  even  the  dullest  of  us  will  begin  to  realize 
them  with  a  quicker  pulse. 

Not  far  from  twenty  years  later,  when  Captain  John 
Brown  was  taken  at  Harper's  Ferry,  Thoreau  was  the 
first  to  come  forward  in  his  defence.  The  commit- 
tees wrote  to  him  unanimously  that  his  action  was 
premature.  "  I  did  not  send  to  you  for  advice,"  said 
he,  "  but  to  announce  that  I  was  to  speak."  I  have 
used  the  word  "  defence  ;"  in  truth  he  did  not  seek 
to  defend  him,  even  declared  it  would  be  better  for 
the  good  cause  that  he  should  die  ;  but  he  praised  his 
action  as  I  think  Brown  would  have  liked  to  hear  it 
praised. 

Thus  this  singularly  eccentric  and  independent 
mind,  wedded  to  a  character  of  so  much  strength, 
singleness,  and  purity,  pursued  its  own  path  of  self- 
improvement  for  more  than  half  a  century,  part  gym- 
nosophist,  part  backwoodsman  ;  and  thus  did  it  come 
twice,  though  in  a  subaltern  attitude,  into  the  field  of 
political  history. 

Note. — For  many  facts  in  the  above  essay,  among  which 
I  may  mention  the  incident  of  the  squirrel,  I  am  indebted  to 
Thoreati  :  His  Life  and  Aims,  by  J,  A.  Page,  or,  as  is  well 
known.  Dr.  Japp. 


YOSHIDA-TORAJIRO. 

The  name  at  the  head  of  this  page  is  probably  un- 
known to  the  EngHsh  reader,  and  yet  I  think  it  should 
become  a  household  word  like  that  of  Garibaldi  or 
John  Brown.  Some  day  soon,  we  may  expect  to  hear 
more  fully  the  details  of  Yoshida's  history,  and  the 
degree  of  his  influence  in  the  transformation  of  Japan  ; 
even  now  there  must  be  Englishmen  acquainted  with 
the  subject,  and  perhaps  the  appearance  of  this  sketch 
may  elicit  something  more  complete  and  exact.  I 
wish  to  say  that  I  am  not,  rightly  speaking,  the  author 
of  the  present  paper  :  I  tell  the  story  on  the  authority 
of  an  intelligent  Japanese  gentleman,  IMr.  Taiso 
Masaki,  who  told  it  me  with  an  emotion  that  does 
honor  to  hii  heart  ;  and  though  I  have  taken  some 
pains,  and  sent  my  notes  to  him  to  be  corrected,  this 
can  be  no  more  than  an  imperfect  outline. 

Yoshida-Torajiro  was  son  to  the  hereditary  military 
instructor  of  the  house  of  Choshu.  The  name  you 
are  to  pronounce  with  an  equality  of  accent  on  the 
different  syllables,  almost  as  in  French,  the  vowels  as 
in  Italian,  but  the  consonants  in  the  English  manner 
— except  the  /,  which  has  the  French  sound,  or,  as  it 
has  been  cleverly  proposed  to  write  it,  the  sound  of 


YOSHIDA-TORAJIRO.  1 75 

zh.  Yoshida  was  very  learned  in  Chinese  letters,  or, 
as  we  might  say,  in  the  classics,  and  in  his  father's 
subject  ;  fortification  was  among  his  favorite  studies, 
and  he  was  a  poet  from  his  boyhood.  He  was  born 
to  a  Hvely  and  intelligent  patriotism  ;  the  condition 
of  Japan  was  his  great  concern  ;  and  while  he  pro- 
jected a  better  future,  he  lost  no  opportunity  of  im- 
proving his  knowledge  of  her  present  state.  With  this 
end  he  was  continually  travelling  in  his  youth,  going 
on  foot  and  sometimes  with  three  days'  provision  on 
his  back,  in  the  brave,  self-helpful  manner  of  all 
heroes.  He  kept  a  full  diary  while  he  was  thus  upon 
his  journeys,  but  it  is  feared  that  these  notes  have  been 
destroyed.  If  their  value  were  in  any  respect  such  as 
we  have  reason  to  expect  from  the  man's  character, 
this  would  be  a  loss  not  easy  to  exaggerate.  It  is  still 
wonderful  to  the  Japanese  how  far  he  contrived  to 
push  these  explorations  ;  a  cultured  gentleman  of 
that  land  and  period  would  leave  a  complimentary 
poem  wherever  he  had  been  hospitably  entertained  ; 
and  a  friend  of  Mr.  Masaki,  who  was  likewise  a  great 
wanderer,  has  found  such  traces  of  Yoshida's  passage 
in  very  remote  regions  of  Japan. 

Politics  is  perhaps  the  only  profession  for  which  no 
preparation  is  thought  necessary  ;  but  Yoshida  con- 
sidered otherwise,  and  he  studied  the  miseries  of  his 
fellow-countrymen  with  as  much  attention  and  re- 
search as  though  he  had  been  going  to  write  a  book 
instead  of  merely  to  propose  a  remedy.  To  a  man 
of  his  intensity  and  singleness,  there  is  no  question 


1 7  6  YOSHIDA  -  TORAJIRO. 

but  that  this  survey  was  melancholy  in  the  extreme. 
His  dissatisfaction  is  proved  by  the  eagerness  with 
which  he  threw  himself  into  the  cause  of  reform  ;  and 
what  would  have  discouraged  another  braced  Yoshida 
for  his  task.  As  he  professed  the  theory  of  arms,  it 
was  firstly  the  defences  of  Japan  that  occupied  his 
mind.  The  external  feebleness  of  that  country  was 
then  illustrated  by  the  manners  of  overriding  bar- 
barians, and  the  visits  of  big  barbarian  war  ships  :  she 
was  a  country  beleaguered.  Thus  the  patriotism  of 
Yoshida  took  a  form  which  may  be  said  to  have  de- 
feated itself  :  he  had  it  upon  him  to  keep  out  these 
all-powerful  foreigners,  whom  it  is  now  one  of  his 
chief  merits  to  have  helped  to  introduce  ;  but  a  man 
who  follows  his  own  virtuous  heart  will  be  always 
found  in  the  end  to  have  been  fighting  for  the  best. 
One  thing  leads  naturally  to  another  in  an  awakened 
mind,  and  that  with  an  upward  progress  from  effect  to 
cause.  The  power  and  knowledge  of  these  foreigners 
were  things  inseparable  ;  by  envying  them  their  mili- 
tary strength,  Yoshida  came  to  envy  them  their  cul- 
ture ;  from  the  desire  to  equal  them  in  the  first,  sprang 
his  desire  to  share  with  them  in  the  second  ;  and  thus 
he  is  found  treating  in  the  same  book  of  a  new  scheme 
to  strengthen  the  defences  of  Kioto  and  of  the  estab- 
lishment, in  the  same  city,  of  a  university  of  foreign 
teachers.  He  hoped,  perhaps,  to  get  the  good  of  other 
lands  without  their  evil  ;  to  enable  Japan  to  profit  by 
the  knowledge  of  the  barbarians,  and  still  keep  her 
inviolate  with  her  own  arts  and  virtues.      But  whatever 


YOSIIIDA-TORAJIRO.  177 

was  the  precise  nature  of  his  hope,  the  means  by 
which  it  was  to  be  accompHshed  were  both  difficult 
and  obvious.  Some  one  with  eyes  and  understanding 
must  break  through  the  official  cordon,  escape  into 
the  new  world,  and  study  this  other  civilization  on  the 
spot.  And  who  could  be  better  suited  for  the  busi- 
ness .''  It  was  not  without  danger,  but  he  was  without 
fear.  It  needed  preparation  and  insight  ;  and  what 
had  he  done  since  he  was  a  child  but  prepare  himself 
with  the  best  culture  of  Japan,  and  acquire  in  his  ex- 
cursions the  power  and  habit  of  observing .? 

He  was  but  twenty-two,  and  already  all  this  was 
clear  in  his  mind,  when  news  reached  Choshu  that 
Commodore  Perry  was  lying  near  to  Yeddo.  Here, 
then,  was  the  patriot's  opportunity.  Among  the 
Samurai  of  Choshu,  and  in  particular  among  the 
councillors  of  the  Daimio,  his  general  culture,  his 
views,  which  the  enlightened  were  eager  to  accept, 
and,  above  all,  the  prophetic  charm,  the  radiant  per- 
suasion of  the  man,  had  gained  him  many  and  sincere 
disciples.  He  had  thus  a  strong  influence  at  the  pro- 
vincial Court ;  and  so  he  obtained  leave  to  quit  the 
district,  and,  by  way  of  a  pretext,  a  privilege  to  follow 
his  profession  in  Yeddo.  Thither  he  hurried,  and  ar- 
rived in  time  to  be  too  late  :  Perry  had  weighed  anchor, 
and  his  sails  had  vanished  from  the  waters  of  Japan. 
But  Yoshida,  having  put  his  hand  to  the  plough,  was 
not  the  man  to  go  back  ;  he  had  entered  upon  this 
business,  and,  please  God,  he  would  carrj'  it  through  ; 
and  so  he  gave  up  his  professional  career  and  remained 


1 7  8  VO  SHI  DA  -  TORAJIRO. 

in  Yeddo  to  be  at  hand  against  the  next  opportunity. 
By  this  behavior  he  put  himself  into  an  attitude  toward 
his  superior,  the  Daimio  of  Choshu,  which  I  cannot 
thoroughly  explain.  Certainly,  he  became  a  Ronyin, 
a  broken  man,  a  feudal  outlaw  ;  certainly  he  was 
liable  to  be  arrested  if  he  set  foot  upon  his  native 
province  ;  yet  1  am  cautioned  that  "  he  did  not  really 
break  his  allegiance, ' '  but  only  so  far  separated  him- 
self as  that  the  prince  could  no  longer  be  held  account- 
able for  his  late  vassal's  conduct.  There  is  some 
nicety  of  feudal  custom  here  that  escapes  my  compre- 
hension. 

In  Yeddo,  with  this  nondescript  political  status,  and 
cut  off  from  any  means  of  livelihood,  he  was  joyfully 
supported  by  those  who  sympathized  with  his  design. 
One  was  Sakuma-Shozan,  hereditary  retainer  of  one 
of  the  Shogun's  councillors,  and  from  him  he  got 
more  than  money  or  than  money's  worth.  A  steady, 
respectable  man,  with  an  eye  to  the  world's  opinion, 
Sakuma  was  one  of  those  who,  if  they  cannot  do  great 
deeds  in  their  own  person,  have  yet  an  ardor  of  ad- 
miration for  those  who  can,  that  recommends  them  to 
the  gratitude  of  history.  They  aid  and  abet  greatness 
more,  perhaps,  than  we  imagine.  One  thinks  of  them 
in  connection  with  Nicodemus,  who  visited  our  Lord 
by  night.  And  Sakuma  was  in  a  position  to  help 
Yoshida  more  practically  than  by  simple  countenance  ; 
for  he  could  read  Dutch,  and  was  eager  to  communi- 
cate what  he  knew. 

While  the  young  Ronyin  thus  lay  studying  in  Yed- 


YOSHIDA  ■  TORAJIR  0.  179 

do,  news  came  of  a  Russian  ship  at  Nangasaki.  No 
time  was  to  be  lost.  Sakuma  contributed  "a  long 
copy  of  encouraging  verses  ;"  and  off  set  Yoshida  on 
foot  for  Nangasaki.  His  way  lay  through  his  own 
province  of  Choshu  ;  but,  as  the  highroad  to  the  south 
lay  apart  from  the  capital,  he  was  able  to  avoid  arrest. 
He  supported  himself,  like  a  trouvere,  by  his  profi- 
ciency in  verse.  He  carried  his  works  along  with  him, 
to  serve  as  an  introduction.  When  he  reached  a 
town  he  would  inquire  for  the  house  of  any  one  cele- 
brated for  swordsmanship,  or  poetry,  or  some  of  the 
other  acknowledged  forms  of  culture  ;  and  there,  on 
giving  a  taste  of  his  skill,  he  would  be  received  and 
entertained,  and  leave  behind  him,  when  he  went 
away,  a  compliment  in  verse.  Thus  he  travelled 
through  the  Middle  Ages  on  his  voyage  of  discovery 
into  the  nineteenth  century.  When  he  reached  Nan- 
gasaki he  was  once  more  too  late.  The  Russians  were 
gone.  But  he  made  a  profit  on  his  journey  in  spite 
of  fate,  and  stayed  awhile  to  pick  up  scraps  of  knowl- 
edge from  the  Dutch  interpreters — a  low  class  of  men, 
but  one  that  had  opportunities  ;  and  then,  still  full  of 
purpose,  returned  to  Yeddo  on  foot,  as  he  had  come. 
It  was  not  only  his  youth  and  courage  that  supported 
him  under  these  successive  disappointments,  but  the 
continual  affluence  of  new  disciples.  The  man  had 
the  tenacity  of  a  Bruce  or  a  Columbus,  with  a  pliabil- 
ity that  was  all  his  own.  He  did  not  fight  for  what 
the  world  would  call  success  ;  but  lor  "  the  wages  of 
going  on."     Check  him  off  in  a  dozen  directions,  he 


1 80  YOSHIDA  -  TOKAJIRO. 

would  find  another  outlet  and  break  forth.  He  missed 
one  vessel  after  another,  and  the  main  work  still  halt- 
ed ;  but  so  long  as  he  had  a  single  Japanese  to  en- 
lighten and  prepare  for  the  better  future,  he  could  still 
feel  that  he  was  working  for  Japan.  Now,  he  had 
scarce  returned  from  Nangasaki,  when  he  was  sought 
out  by  a  new  inquirer,  the  most  promising  of  all. 
This  was  a  common  soldier,  of  the  Hemming  class,  a 
dyer  by  birth,  who  had  heard  vaguely'  of  Yoshida's 
movements,  and  had  become  filled  with  womler  as  to 
their  design.  This  was  a  far  different  inquirer  from 
Sakuma-Shozan,  or  the  councillors  of  the  Daimio  of 
Choshu.  This  was  no  tvvo-sworded  gentleman,  but 
the  common  stuff  of  the  country,  born  in  low  tradi- 
tions and  unimproved  by  books  ;  and  yet  that  influ- 
ence, that  radiant  persuasion  that  never  failed  Yoshida 
in  any  circumstance  of  his  short  life,  enchanted,  en- 
thralled, and  converted  the  common  soldier,  as  it  had 
done  already  with  the  elegant  and  learned.  The  man 
instantly  burned  up  into  a  true  enthusiasm  ;  his  mind 
had  been  only  waiting  for  a  teacher  ;  he  grasped  in  a 
moment  the  profit  of  these  new  ideas  ;  he,  too,  would 
go  to  foreign,  outlandish  parts,  and  bring  back  the 
knowledge  that  was  to  strengthen  and  renew  Japan  ; 


•  Yoshida,  when  on  his  way  to  Nangasaki,  met  the  soldier  and  talked 
with  him  by  the  roadside  ;  they  then  parted,  but  the  soldier  was  so  much 
struck  by  the  words  he  heard,  that  on  Yoshida's  return  he  sought  him  out 
and  declared  his  intention  of  devoting  his  life  to  the  good  cause.  I  venture, 
in  the  absence  of  the  writer,  to  insert  this  correction,  having  been  present 
when  the  story  was  told  by  Mr.  Masaki. — F.  J.  And  I,  there  being  none 
to  setlh?  the  differcn<-e,  must   reproduce  both  versions. — R.  L.  S. 


YOSHIDA-  TORAJIRO,  1 8 1 

and  in  the  meantime,  that  he  might  be  the  better  pre- 
pared, Yoshida  set  himself  to  teach,  and  he  to  learn, 
the  Chinese  Uterature.  It  is  an  episode  most  honor- 
able to  Yoshida,  and  yet  more  honorable  still  to  the 
soldier,  and  to  the  capacity  and  virtue  of  the  com- 
mon people  of  Japan. 

And  now,  at  length,  Commodore  Perry  returned  to 
Simoda.     Friends  crowded  round  Yoshida  with  help, 
counsels,  and   encouragement.     One    presented   him 
with  a  great  sword,  three  feet  long  and  very  heavy, 
which,  in  the  exultation  of  the  hour,  he  swore  to  carry 
throughout  all   his  wanderings,  and  to  bring  back — a 
far-travelled  weapon — to    Japan.     A  long  letter  was 
prepared  in  Chinese  for  the  American   officers  ;  it  was 
revised    and  corrected    by  Sdkuma,  and    signed   by 
Yoshida,  under  the   name  of  Urinaki-Manji,  and  by 
the  soldier  under  that  of  Ichigi-Koda,     Yoshida  had 
supplied  himself  with  a  profusion  of  materials  for  writ- 
ing ;  his  dress  was  literally  stuffed  with   paper  which 
was  to  come  back  again  enriched  with  his  observations, 
and  make  a  great  and  happy  kingdom  of  Japan.     Thus 
equipped,  this  pair  of  emigrants  set  forward  on  foot 
from    Yeddo,    and  reached  Simoda    about  nightfall. 
At  no  period  within  history  can  travel  have  presented 
to  any  European  creature  the  same  face  of  awe  and 
terror  as  to  these  courageous  Japanese.     The  descent 
of  Ulysses  into  hell  is  a  parallel  more  near  the  case 
than  the  boldest  expedition  in  the  Polar  circles.     For 
their  act  was  unprecedented  ;  it  was  criminal  ;  and  it 
was  to  take  them  beyond   the  pale  of  humanity  into  a 


1 82  YOSHIDA-  TORAJIRO. 

land  of  devils.  It  is  not  to  be  wondered  at  if  they 
were  thrilled  by  the  thought  of  their  unusual  situation  ; 
and  perhaps  the  soldier  gave  utterance  to  the  senti- 
ment of  both  when  he  sang,  "  in  Chinese  singing"  (so 
that  we  see  he  had  already  profited  by  his  lessons), 
these  two  appropriate  verses  : 

"  We  do  not  know  where  we  are  to  sleep  to-night, 
In  a  thousand  miles  of  desert  where  we  can  see  no  human 
smoke." 

In  a  little  temple,  hard  by  the  sea-shore,  they  lay 
down  to  repose  ;  sleep  overtook  them  as  they  lay  ; 
and  when  they  awoke,  "  the  east  was  already  white" 
for  their  last  morning  in  Japan.  They  seized  a  fish- 
erman's boat  and  rowed  out — Perry  lying  far  to  sea 
because  of  the  two  tides.  Their  very  manner  of 
boarding  was  significant  of  determination  ;  for  they 
had  no  sooner  caught  hold  upon  the  ship  than  they 
kicked  away  their  boat  to  make  return  impossible. 
And  now  you  would  have  thought  that  all  was  over. 
But  the  Commodore  was  already  in  treaty  with  the 
Shogun's  Government  ;  it  was  one  of  the  stipulations 
that  no  Japanese  was  to  be  aided  in  escaping  from 
Japan  ;  and  Yoshida  and  his  followers  were  handed 
over  as  prisoners  to  the  authorities  at  Simoda.  That 
night  he  who  had  been  to  explore  the  secrets  of  the 
barbarian  slept,  if  he  might  sleep  at  all,  in  a  cell  too 
short  for  lying  down  at  full  length,  and  too  low  for 
standing  upright.  There  are  some  disappointments 
too  great  for  commentary. 


YOSHIDA-TORAJIRO.  183 

Sdkuma,  implicated  by  his  handwriting,  was  sent 
into  his  own  province  in  confinement,  from  which  he 
was  soon  released.  Yoshida  and  the  soldier  suffered 
a  long  and  miserable  period  of  captivity,  and  the  lat- 
ter, indeed,  died,  while  yet  in  prison,  of  a  skin  dis- 
ease. But  such  a  spirit  as  that  of  Yoshida-Torajiro  is 
not  easily  made  or  kept  a  captive  ;  and  that  which 
cannot  be  broken  by  misfortune  you  shall  seek  in  vain 
to  confine  in  a  bastille.  He  was  indefatigably  active, 
writing  reports  to  Government  and  treatises  for  dis- 
semination. These  latter  were  contraband  ;  and  yet 
he  found  no  diflftculty  in  their  distribution,  for  he  al- 
ways had  the  jailer  on  his  side.  It  was  in  vain  that 
they  kept  changing  him  from  one  prison  to  another  ; 
Government  by  that  plan  only  hastened  the  spread  of 
new  ideas  ;  for  Yoshida  had  only  to  arrive  to  make  a 
convert.  Thus,  though  he  himself  has  laid  by  the 
heels,  he  confirmed  and  extended  his  party  in  the 
State. 

At  last,  after  many  lesser  transferences,  he  was  given 
over  from  the  prisons  of  the  Shogun  to  those  of  his 
own  superior,  the  Daimio  of  Choshu.  I  conceive  it 
posjible  that  he  may  then  have  served  out  his  time  for 
the  attempt  to  leave  Japan,  and  was  now  resigned  to 
the  provincial  Government  on  a  lesser  count,  as  a 
Ronyin  or  feudal  rebel.  But,  however  that  may  be, 
the  change  was  of  great  importance  to  Yoshida  ;  for 
by  the  influence  of  his  admirers  in  the  Daimio's 
council,  he  was  allowed  the  privilege,  underhand,  of 
dwelling  in  his  own  house.     And  there,   as  well  to 


1  84.  YOSHIDA-  TORAJIRO. 

keep  up  communication  with  his  fellow-reformers  as 
to  pursue  his  work  of  education,  he  received  boys  to 
teach.  It  must  not  be  supposed  that  he  was  free  ;  he 
was  too  marked  a  man  for  that ;  he  was  probably  as- 
signed to  some  small  circle,  and  lived,  as  we  should 
say,  under  police  surveillance  ;  but  to  him,  who  had 
done  so  much  from  under  lock  and  key,  this  would 
seem  a  large  and  profitable  liberty. 

It  was  at  this  period  that  Mr.  Masaki  was  brought 
into  personal  contact  with  Yoshida ;  and  hence, 
through  the  eyes  of  a  boy  of  thirteen,  we  get  one  good 
look  at  the  character  and  habits  of  the  hero.  He  was 
ugly  and  laughably  disfigured  with  the  small-pox  ;  and 
while  nature  had  been  so  niggardly  with  him  from 
the  first,  his  personal  habits  were  even  sluttish.  His 
clothes  were  wretched  ;  when  he  ate  or  washed  he 
wiped  his  hands  upon  his  sleeves  ;  and  as  his  hair  was 
not  tied  more  than  once  in  the  two  months,  it  was 
often  disgusting  to  behold.  With  such  a  picture,  it 
is  easy  to  believe  that  he  never  married.  A  good 
teacher,  gentle  in  act,  although  violent  and  abusive  in 
speech,  his  lessons  were  apt  to  go  over  the  heads  of 
his  scholars,  and  to  leave  them  gaping,  or  more  often 
laughing.  Such  was  his  passion  for  study  that  he 
even  grudged  himself  natural  repose  ;  and  when  he 
grew  drowsy  over  his  books  he  would,  if  it  was  sum- 
mer, put  mosquitoes  up  his  sleeve  ;  and,  if  it  was 
winter,  take  off  his  shoes  and  run  barefoot  on  the  snow. 
His  handwriting  was  exceptionally  villainous  ;  poet 
lliDugh  he  was,  he  had  no  taste  for  what  was  elegant  ; 


YOSIIIDA-TORAJIRO.  1 85 

and  in  a  country  where  to  write  beautifully  was  not 
the  mark  of  a  scrivener  but  an  admired  accomplish- 
ment for  gentlemen,  he  suffered  his  letters  to  be  jolted 
out  of  him  by  the  press  of  matter  and  the  heat  of  his 
convictions.  He  would  not  tolerate  even  the  appear- 
ance of  a  bribe  ;  for  bribery  lay  at  the  root  of  much 
that  was  evil  in  Japan,  as  well  as  in  countries  nearer 
home  ;  and  once  when  a  merchant  brought  him  his 
son  to  educate,  and  added,  as  was  customary,'  a  little 
private  sweetener,  Yoshida  dashed  the  money  in  the 
giver's  face,  and  launched  into  such  an  outbreak  of 
indignation  as  made  the  matter  public  in  the  school. 
He  was  still,  when  Masaki  knew  him,  much  weak- 
ened by  his  hardships  in  prison  ;  and  the  presentation 
sword,  three  feet  long,  was  too  heavy  for  him  to  wear 
without  distress  ;  yet  he  would  always  gird  it  on  when 
he  went  to  dig  in  his  garden.  That  is  a  touch  which 
qualifies  the  man.  A  weaker  nature  would  have 
shrunk  from  the  sight  of  what  only  commemorated  a 
failure.  But  he  was  of  Thoreau's  mind,  that  if  you 
can  "  make  your  failure  tragical  by  courage,  it  will 
not  differ  from  success. ' '  He  could  look  back  with- 
out confusion  to  his  enthusiastic  promise.  If  events 
had  been  contrary,  and  he  found  himself  unable  to 
carry  out  that  purpose — well,  there  was  but  the  more 
reason  to  be  brave  and  constant  in  another  ;  if  he  could 
not  carry  the  sword  into  barbarian  lands,  it  should 
at  least  be  witness  to  a  life  spent  entirely  for  Japan. 

'   I   understood  that  the  merchant  was  endeavoring  surreptitiously  t» 
obtain  for  his  son  instruction  to  which  he  was  not  entitled. — F.  J. 


1 86  YOSHIDA-TORAJIRO. 

This  is  the  sight  we  have  of  him  as  he  appeared  to 
schoolboys,  but  not  related  in  the  schoolboy  spirit. 
A  man  so  careless  of  the  graces  must  be  out  of  court 
with  boys  and  women.  And,  indeed,  as  we  have  all 
been  more  or  less  to  school,  it  will  astonish  no  one 
that  Yoshida  was  regarded  by  his  scholars  as  a  laugh- 
ing-stock. The  schoolboy  has  a  keen  sense  of  humor. 
Heroes  he  learns  to  understand  and  to  admire  in 
books  ;  but  he  is  not  forward  to  recognize  the  heroic 
under  the  traits  of  any  contemporary  man,  and  least 
of  all  in  a  brawling,  dirty,  and  eccentric  teacher.  But 
as  the  years  went  by,  and  the  scholars  of  Yoshida  con- 
tinued in  vain  to  look  around  them  for  the  abstractly 
perfect,  and  began  more  and  more  to  understand  the 
drift  of  his  instructions,  they  learned  to  look  back 
upon  their  comic  schoolmaster  as  upon  the  noblest  of 
mankind. 

The  last  act  of  this  brief  and  full  existence  was  al- 
ready near  at  hand.  Some  of  his  work  was  done  ; 
for  already  there  had  been  Dutch  teachers  admitted 
into  Nangasaki,  and  the  country  at  large  was  keen  for 
the  new  learning.  But  though  the  renaissance  had 
begun,  it  was  impeded  and  dangerously  threatened  by 
the  power  of  the  Shogun.  His  minister — the  same 
who  was  afterward  assassinated  in  the  snow  in  the  very 
midst  of  his  bodyguard — not  only  held  back  pupils 
from  going  to  the  Dutchmen,  but  by  spies  and  detec- 
tives, by  imprisonment  and  death,  kept  thinning  out 
of  Japan  the  most  intelligent  and  active  spirits.  It  is 
the  old  story  of  a  power  upon  its  last  legs — learning  to 


YOSHIDA-TORAJIRO.  187 

the  Bastille,  and  courage  to  the  block  ;  when  there 
are  none  left  but  sheep  and  donkeys,  the  State  will 
have  been  saved.  But  a  man  must  not  think  to  cope 
with  a  Revolution  ;  nor  a  minister,  however  fortified 
with  guards,  to  hold  in  check  a  country  that  had  given 
birth  to  such  men  as  Yoshida  and  his  soldier  follower. 
The  violence  of  the  ministerial  Tarquin  only  served 
to  direct  attention  to  the  illegality  of  his  master's  rule  ; 
and  people  began  to  turn  their  allegiance  from  Yeddo 
and  the  Shogun  to  the  long-forgotten  Mikado  in  his 
seclusion  at  Kioto.  At  this  juncture,  whether  in  con- 
sequence or  not,  the  relations  between  these  two  rulers 
became  strained  ;  and  the  Shogun' s  minister  set  forth 
for  Kioto  to  put  another  affront  upon  the  rightful  sov- 
ereign. The  circumstance  was  well  fitted  to  precipi- 
tate events.  It  was  a  piece  of  religion  to  defend  the 
Mikado  ;  it  was  a  plain  piece  of  political  righteous- 
ness to  oppose  a  tyrannical  and  bloody  usurpation. 
To  Yoshida  the  moment  for  action  seemed  to  have 
arrived.  He  was  himself  still  confined  in  Choshu. 
Nothing  was  free  but  his  intelligence  ;  but  with  that 
he  sharpened  a  sword  for  the  Shogun' s  minister.  A 
party  of  his  followers  were  to  waylay  the  tyrant  at  a 
village  on  the  Yeddo  and  Kioto  road,  present  him 
with  a  petition,  and  put  him  to  the  sword.  But 
Yoshida  and  his  friends  were  closely  observed  ;  and 
the  too  great  expedition  of  two  of  the  conspirators,  a 
boy  of  eighteen  and  his  brother,  wakened  the  suspi- 
cion of  the  authorities,  and  led  to  a  full  discovery  of 
the  plot  and  the  arrest  of  all  who  were  concerned. 


1 88  YOSHIDA  -  TORAJIRO. 

In  Yeddo,  to  which  he  was  taken,  Yoshida  was 
thrown  again  into  a  strict  confinement.  But  he  was 
not  left  destitute  of  sympathy  in  this  last  hour  of  trial. 
In  the  next  cell  lay  one  Kusakabe,  a  reformer  from 
the  southern  highlands  of  Satzuma.  They  were  in 
prison  for  different  plots  indeed,  but  for  the  same  in- 
tention ;  they  shared  the  same  beliefs  and  the  same 
aspirations  for  Japan  ;  many  and  long  were  the  con- 
versations they  held  through  the  prison  wall,  and  dear 
was  the  sympathy  that  soon  united  them.  It  fell  first 
to  the  lot  of  Kusakabe  to  pass  before  the  judges  ;  and 
when  sentence  had  been  pronounced  he  was  led  toward 
the  place  of  death  below  Yoshida' s  window.  To  turn 
the  head  would  have  been  to  implicate  his  fellow- 
prisoner  ;  but  he  threw  him  a  look  from  his  eye,  and 
bade  him  farewell  in  a  loud  voice,  with  these  two 
Chinese  verses  : — 

"It  is  better  to  be  a  crystal  and  be  broken, 
Than  to  remain  perfect  like  a  tile  upon  the  housetop." 

So  Kusakabe,  from  the  highlands  of  Satzuma,  passed 
out  of  the  theatre  of  this  world.  His  death  was  like 
an  antique  worthy's. 

A  little  after,  and  Yoshida  too  must  appear  before 
the  Court.  His  last  scene  was  of  a  piece  with  his 
career,  and  fitly  crowned  it.  He  seized  on  the  op- 
portunity of  a  public  audience,  confessed  and  gloried 
in  his  design,  and,  reading  his  auditors  a  lesson  in  the 
history  of  their  country,  told  at  length  the  illegality  of 
the  Shogun's  power  and  the  crimes  by  which  its  exer- 


YOSHIDA  TOKAJIRO.  189 

cise  was  sullied.     So,  having  said  his  say  for  once,  he 
was  led  forth  and  executed,  thirty-one  years  old. 

A  military  engineer,  a  bold  traveller  (at  least  in 
wish),  a  poet,  a  patriot,  a  schoolmaster,  a  friend  to 
learning,  a  martyr  to  reform, — there  are  not  many 
men,  dying  at  seventy,  who  have  served  their  country 
in  such  various  characters.  He  was  not  only  wise  and 
provident  in  thought,  but  surely  one  of  the  fieriest  of 
heroes  in  execution.  It  is  hard  to  say  which  is  most 
remarkable — his  capacity  for  command,  which  sub- 
dued his  very  jailers  ;  his  hot,  unflagging  zeal  ;  or  his 
stubborn  superiority  to  defeat.  He  failed  in  each  par- 
ticular enterprise  that  he  attempted  ;  and  yet  we  have 
only  to  look  at  his  country  to  see  how  complete  has 
been  his  general  success.  His  friends  and  pupils 
made  the  majority  of  leaders  in  that  final  Revolution, 
now  some  twelve  years  old  ;  and  many  of  them  are, 
or  were  until  the  other  day,  high  placed  among  the 
rulers  of  Japan.  And  when  we  see  all  round  us  these 
brisk  intelligent  students,  with  their  strange  foreign 
air,  we  should  never  iorget  how  Yoshida  marched 
afoot  from  Choshu  to  Yeddo,  and  from  Yeddo  to 
Nangasaki,  and  from  Nangasaki  back  again  to  Yeddo  ; 
how  he  boarded  the  American  ship,  his  dress  stuffed 
with  writing  material  ;  nor  how  he  languished  in 
prison,  and  finally  gave  his  death,  as  he  had  formerly 
given  all  his  life  and  strength  and  leisure,  to  gain  for 
his  native  land  that  very  benefit  which  she  nov/  enjoys 
so  largely.  It  is  better  to  be  Yoshida  and  perish,  than 
to  be  only  Sakumaand  yet  save  the  hide.     Kusakabe, 


1 90  YOSIIIDA  -  TORAJIRO. 

of  Satzuma,  has  said  the  word  :  it  is  better  to  be  a 
crystal  and  be  broken. 

I  must  add  a  word  ;  for  I  hope  the  reader  will  not 
fail  to  perceive  that  this  is  as  much  the  story  of  a 
heroic  people  as  that  of  a  heroic  man.  It  is  not 
enough  to  remember  Yoshida  ;  we  must  not  forget 
the  common  soldier,  nor  Kusakabe,  nor  the  boy  of 
eighteen,  Nomura,  of  Choshu,  whose  eagerness  be- 
trayed the  plot.  It  is  exhilarating  to  have  lived  in  the 
same  days  with  these  great  hearted  gentlemen.  Only 
a  few  miles  from  us,  to  speak  by  the  proportion  of  the 
universe,  while  I  was  droning  over  my  lessons,  Yoshida 
was  goading  himself  to  be  wakeful  with  the  stings  of 
the  mosquito  ;  and  while  you  were  grudging  a  penny 
income  tax,  Kusakabe  was  stepping  to  death  with  a 
noble  sentence  on  his  lips. 


FRANgOIS  VILLON,  STUDENT,  POET,  AND 
HOUSEBREAKER. 

Perhaps  one  of  the  most  curious  revolutions  in  lit- 
erary history  is  the  sudden  bull's-eye  light  cast  by 
M.  Longnon  on  the  obscure  existence  of  Franjois  Vil- 
lon. '  His  book  is  not  remarkable  merely  as  a  chapter 
of  biography  exhumed  after  four  centuries.  To  readers 
of  the  poet  it  will  recall,  with  a  flavor  of  satire,  that 
characteristic  passage  in  which  he  bequeaths  his  spec- 
tacles— with  a  humorous  reservation  of  the  case — to 
the  hospital  for  blind  paupers  known  as  the  Fifteen- 
Score.  Thus  equipped,  let  the  blind  paupers  go  and 
separate  the  good  from  the  bad  in  the  cemetery  of  the 
Innocents  !  For  his  own  part  the  poet  can  see  no 
distinction.  IMuch  have  the  dead  people  made  of  their 
advantages.  What  does  it  matter  now  that  they  have 
lain  in  state  beds  and  nourished  portly  bodies  upon 
cakes  and  cream  !  Here  they  all  lie,  to  be  trodden  in 
the  mud  ;  the  large  estate  and  the  small,  sounding  vir- 
tue and  adroit  or  powerful  vice,  in  very  much  the  same 
condition  ;  and  a  bishop  not  to  be  distinguished  from 
a  lamplighter  with  even  the  strongest  spectacles. 

1  Etude  Biogp'aphigue  sur  Francois  Villon.     Paris  :  H.  Menu. 


192  FRAN  go  IS  VILLON, 

Such  was  Villon's  cynical  philosophy.  Four  hun- 
dred years  after  his  death,  when  surely  all  danger 
might  be  considered  at  an  end,  a  pair  of  critical  specta- 
cles have  been  applied  to  his  own  remains  ;  and 
though  he  left  behind  him  a  sufficiently  ragged  repu- 
tation from  the  first,  it  is  only  after  these  four  hundred 
years  that  his  delinquencies  have  been  finally  tracked 
home,  and  we  can  assign  him  to  his  proper  place 
among  the  good  or  wicked.  It  is  a  staggering 
thought,  and  one  that  affords  a  fine  figure  of  the  im- 
perishability of  men's  acts,  that  the  stealth  of  the  pri- 
vate inquiry  office  can  be  carried  so  far  back  into  the 
dead  and  dusty  past.  We  are  not  so  soon  quit  of  our 
concerns  as  Villon  fancied.  In  the  extreme  of  disso- 
lution, when  not  so  much  as  a  man's  name  is  remem- 
bered, when  his  dust  is  scattered  to  the  four  winds, 
and  perhaps  the  very  grave  and  the  very  graveyard 
where  he  was  laid  to  rest  have  been  forgotten,  dese- 
crated, and  buried  under  populous  towns, —  even  in 
this  extreme  let  an  antiquary  fall  across  a  sheet  of 
manuscript,  and  the  name  will  be  recalled,  the  old  in- 
famy will  pop  out  into  daylight  like  a  toad  out  of  a 
fissure  in  the  rock,  and  the  shadow  of  the  shade  of 
what  was  once  a  man  will  be  heartily  pilloried  by  his 
descendants.  A  little  while  ago  and  Villon  was  al- 
most totally  forgotten  ;  then  he  was  revived  for  the 
sake  of  his  verses  ;  and  now  he  is  being  revived  with 
a  vengeance  in  the  detection  0(  his  misdemeanors. 
How  unsubstantial  is  this  projection  of  a  man's  exist- 
ence,  which   can  lie  in   abeyance  for  centuries  and 


STUDENT,  POET,  AND  HOUSEBREAKER.     193 

then  be  brushed  up  again  and  set  forth  for  the  consid- 
eration of  posterity  by  a  few  dips  in  an  antiquary's 
inkpot  !  This  precarious  tenure  of  fame  goes  a  long 
way  to  justify  those  (and  they  are  not  few)  who  prefer 
cakes  and  cream  in  the  immediate  present. 

A  Wild  Youth. 

Fran9ois  de  Montcorbier,  alias  Franfois  des  Loges, 
alias  Fran9ois  Villon,  alias  Michel  Mouton,  Master  of 
Arts  in  the  University  of  Paris,  was  born  in  that  city 
in  the  summer  of  143 1.  It  was  a  memorable  year 
for  France  on  other  and  higher  considerations.  A 
great-hearted  girl  and  a  poor-hearted  boy  made,  the 
one  her  last,  the  other  his  first  appearance  on  the 
public  stage  of  that  unhappy  country.  On  the  30th 
of  May  the  ashes  of  Joan  of  Arc  were  thrown  into  the 
Seine,  and  on  the  2d  of  December  our  Henry  Sixth 
made  his  Joyous  Entry  dismally  enough  into  disaffect- 
ed and  depopulating  Paris.  Sword  and  fire  still  rav- 
aged the  open  country.  On  a  single  April  Saturday 
twelve  hundred  persons,  besides  children,  made  their 
escape  out  of  the  starving  capital.  The  hangman,  as 
is  not  uninteresting  to  note  in  connection  with  Master 
Francis,  was  kept  hard  at  work  in  143 1  ;  on  the  last 
of  April  and  on  the  4th  of  May  alone,  sixty-two 
bandits  swung  from  Paris  gibbets.'  A  more  confused 
or  troublous  time  it  would  have  been  difficult  to  select 
for  a  start  in  life.      Not  even   a  man's  nationality  was 

'  Bou7-geois  lie  Paris,  ej.  Pantheon,  pp.  6S8,  6Sg. 


194  FRANQOIS  VILLOjV, 

certain  ;  for  the  people  of  Paris  there  was  no  such 
thing  as  a  Frenchman.  The  English  were  the  English 
indeed,  but  the  French  were  only  the  Armagnacs, 
whom,  with  Joan  of  Arc  at  their  head,  they  had  beaten 
back  from  under  their  ramparts  not  two  years  before. 
Such  public  sentiment  as  they  had  centred  about  their 
dear  Duke  of  Burgundy,  and  the  dear  Duke  had  no 
more  urgent  business  than  to  keep  out  of  their  neigh- 
borhood. ...  At  least,  and  whether  he  liked  it  or 
not,  our  disreputable  troubadour  was  tubbed  and 
swaddled  as  a  subject  of  the  English  crown. 

We  hear  nothing  of  Villon's  father  except  that  he 
was  poor  and  of  mean  extraction.  His  mother  was 
given  piously,  which  does  not  imply  very  much  in  an 
old  Frenchwoman,  and  quite  uneducated.  He  had 
an  uncle,  a  monk  in  an  abbey  at  Angers,  who  must 
have  prospered  beyond  the  family  average,  and  was 
reported  to  be  worth  five  or  six  hundred  crowns.  Of 
this  uncle  and  his  money-box  the  reader  will  hear 
once  more.  In  1448  Francis  became  a  student  of  the 
University  of  Paris  ;  in  1450  he  took  the  degree  of 
Bachelor,  and  in  1452  that  of  Master  of  Arts.  His 
bourse,  or  the  sum  paid  weekly  for  his  board,  was  of 
the  amount  of  two  sous.  Now  two  sous  w-as  about 
the  price  of  a  pound  of  salt  butter  in  the  bad  times  of 
1417  ;  it  was  the  price  of  half-a-pound  in  the  worse 
times  of  14 19  ;  and  in  1444,  just  four  years  before 
Villon  joined  the  University,  it  seems  to  have  been 
taken  as  the  average  wage  for  a  day's  manual  labor.' 

'  Bourgeois ,  pp.  627,  636,  and  725. 


STUDENT,  POET,  AND  HOUSEBREAKER.     195 

In  short,  it  cannot  have  been  a  very  profuse  allowance 
to  keep  a  sharp-set  lad  in  breakfast  and  supper  for 
seven  mortal  days  ;  and  Villon's  share  of  the  cakes 
and  pastry  and  general  good  cheer,  to  which  he  is 
never  weary  of  referring,  must  have  been  slender  from 
the  first. 

The  educational  arrangements  of  the  University  of 
Paris  were,  to  our  way  of  thinking,  somewhat  incom- 
plete. Worldly  and  monkish  elements  were  presented 
in  a  curious  confusion,  which  the  youth  might  disen- 
tangle for  himself.  If  he  had  an  opportunity,  on  the 
one  hand,  of  acquiring  much  hair- drawn  divinity  and 
a  taste  for  formal  disputation,  he  was  put  in  the  way 
of  much  gross  and  flaunting  vice  upon  the  other. 
The  lecture  room  of  a  scholastic  doctor  was  sometimes 
under  the  same  roof  with  establishments  of  a  very 
different  and  peculiarly  unedifying  order.  The  stu- 
dents had  extraordinary  privileges,  which  by  all  ac- 
counts they  abused  extraordinarily.  And  while  some 
condemned  themselves  to  an  almost  sepulchral  regu- 
larity and  seclusion,  others  fled  the  schools,  swaggered 
in  the  street  ' '  with  their  thumbs  in  their  girdle, ' '  passed 
the  night  in  riot,  and  behaved  themselves  as  the 
worthy  forerunners  of  Jehan  Frollo  in  the  romance  of 
Notre  Dame  de  Paris.  Villon  tells  us  himself  that  he 
was  among  the  truants,  but  we  hardly  needed  his 
avowal.  The  burlesque  erudition  in  which  he  some- 
times indulged  implies  no  more  than  the  merest  smat- 
tering of  knowledge  ;  whereas  his  acquaintance  with 
blackguard  haunts  and  industries  could  only  have  been 


196  FRANCOIS  VILLON, 

acquired  by  early  and  consistent  impiety  and  idleness. 
He  passed  his  degrees,  it  is  true  ;  but  some  of  us  who 
have  been  to  modern  universities  will  make  their  own 
reflections  on  the  value  of  the  test.  As  for  his  three 
pupils,  Colin  Laurent,  Girard  Gossouyn,  and  Jehan 
INIarceau — if  they  were  really  his  pupils  in  any  serious 
sense — what  can  we  say  but  God  help  them  !  And 
sure  enough,  by  his  own  description,  they  turned  out 
as  ragged,  rowdy,  and  ignorant  as  was  to  be  looked 
lor  from  the  views  and  manners  of  their  rare  preceptor. 
At  some  time  or  other,  before  or  during  his  uni- 
versity career,  the  poet  was  adopted  by  Master  Guil- 
laume  de  Villon,  chaplain  of  Saint  Benoit-le-Betourne 
near  the  Sorbonne.  From  him  he  borrowed  the  sur- 
name by  which  he  is  known  to  posterity.  It  was  most 
likely  from  his  house,  called  the  Porte  Rouge,  and 
situated  in  a  garden  in  the  cloister  of  Saint  Benoit,  that 
Master  Francis  heard  the  bell  of  the  Sorbonne  ring 
out  the  Angel  us  while  he  was  finishing  his  Small 
Testament  at  Christmastide  in  1546.  Toward  this 
benefactor  he  usually  gets  credit  for  a  respectable  dis- 
play of  gratitude.  But  with  his  trap  and  pitfall  style 
of  writing,  it  is  easy  to  make  too  sure.  His  senti- 
ments are  about  as  much  to  be  relied  on  as  those  of  a 
professional  beggar  ;  and  in  this,  as  in  so  many  other 
matters,  he  comes  toward  us  whining  and  piping  the 
eye,  and  goes  off  again  with  a  whoop  and  his  finger  to 
his  nose.  Thus,  he  calls  Guillaume  de  Villon  his 
"  more  than  father,"  thanks  him  with  a  great  show  of 
sincerity  for  having  helped  him  out  of  many  scrapes, 


STUDENT,  POET,  AiVD  HOUSEBREAKER.     197 

and  bequeaths  him  his  portion  of  renown.  But  the 
portion  of  renown  which  belonged  to  a  young  thiei, 
distinguished  (if,  at  the  period  when  he  wrote  this 
legacy,  he  was  distinguished  at  all)  for  having  written 
some  more  or  less  obscene  and  scurrilous  ballads, 
must  have  been  little  fitted  to  gratify  the  self-respect 
or  increase  the  reputation  of  a  benevolent  ecclesiastic. 
The  same  remark  applies  to  a  subsequent  legacy  of 
the  poet's  library,  with  specification  of  one  work  which 
was  plainly  neither  decent  nor  devout.  We  are  thus 
left  on  the  horns  of  a  dilemma.  If  the  chaplain  was 
a  godly,  philanthropic  personage,  who  had  tried  to 
graft  good  principles  and  good  behavior  on  this  wild 
slip  of  an  adopted  son,  these  jesting  legacies  would 
obviously  cut  him  to  the  heart.  The  position  of  an 
adopted  son  toward  his  adoptive  father  is  one  full  of 
delicacy  ;  where  a  man  lends  his  name  he  looks  for 
great  consideration.  And  this  legacy  of  Villon's  por- 
tion of  renown  may  be  taken  as  the  mere  fling  of  an 
unregenerate  scapegrace  who  has  wit  enough  to  recog- 
nize in  his  own  shame  the  readiest  weapon  of  offence 
against  a  prosy  benefactor's  feelings.  The  gratitude 
of  Master  Francis  figures,  on  this  reading,  as  a  fright- 
ful mmus  quantity.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  those  jests 
were  given  and  taken  in  good  humor,  the  whole  rela- 
tion between  the  pair  degenerates  into  the  unedifying 
complicity  of  a  debauched  old  chaplain  and  a  witty 
and  dissolute  young  scholar.  At  this  rate  the  house 
with  the  red  door  may  have  rung  with  the  most  mun- 
dane  minstrelsy  ;    and   it  may  have   been  below  its 


TpS  FRANCOIS  VILLON, 

roof  that  Villon,  through  a  hole  in  the  plaster,  studied, 
as  he  tells  us,  the  leisures  of  a  rich  ecclesiastic. 

It  was,  perhaps,  of  some  moment  in  the  poet's  life 
that  he  should  have  inhabited  the  cloister  of  Saint 
Benoit.  Three  of  the  most  remarkable  among  his 
early  acquaintances  are  Catherine  de  Vausselles,  for 
whom  he  entertained  a  short-lived  affection  and  an 
enduring  and  most  unmanly  resentment ;  Regnier  de 
Montigny,  a  young  blackguard  of  good  birth  ;  and 
Colin  de  Cayeux,  a  fellow  with  a  marked  aptitude  for 
picking  locks.  Now  we  are  on  a  foundation  of  mere 
conjecture,  but  it  is  at  least  curious  to  find  that  two  of 
the  canons  of  Saint  Benoit  answered  respectively  to 
the  names  of  Pierre  de  Vaucel  and  Etienne  de  Mon- 
tigny, and  that  there  was  a  householder  called  Nicolas 
de  Cayeux  in  a  street — the  Rue  des  Poirees — in  the 
immediate  neighborhood  of  the  cloister.  M.  Long- 
non  is  almost  ready  to  identify  Catherine  as  the  niece 
of  Pierre  ;  Regnier  as  the  nephew  of  Etienne,  and 
Colin  as  the  son  of  Nicolas.  Without  going  so  far,  it 
must  be  owned  that  the  approximation  of  names  is 
significant.  As  we  go  on  to  see  the  part  played  by 
each  of  these  persons  in  the  sordid  melodrama  of  the 
poet's  life,  we  shall  come  to  regard  it  as  even  more 
notable.  Is  it  not  Clough  who  has  remarked  that, 
after  all,  everything  lies  in  juxtaposition  .?  Many  a 
man's  destiny  has  been  settled  by  nothing  apparently 
more  grave  than  a  pretty  face  on  the  opposite  side  of 
the  street  and  a  couple  of  bad  companions  round  the 
corner. 


STUDENT,  POET,  AND  HOUSEBREAKER.    199 

Catherine  de  Vausselles  (or  de  Vaucel — the  change 
is  within  the  limits  of  Villon's  license)  had  plainly 
delighted  in  the  poet's  conversation  ;  near  neighbors 
or  not,  they  were  much  together  ;  and  Villon  made 
no  secret  of  his  court,  and  suffered  himself  to  believe 
that  his  feeling  was  repaid  in  kind.  This  may  have 
been  an  error  from  the  first,  or  he  may  have  estranged 
her  by  subsequent  misconduct  or  temerity.  One  can 
easily  imagine  Villon  an  impatient  wooer.  One  thing, 
at  least,  is  sure  :  that  the  affair  terminated  in  a  man- 
ner bitterly  humiliating  to  Master  Francis.  In  pres- 
ence of  his  lady-love,  perhaps  under  her  window  and 
certainly  with  her  connivance,  he  was  unmercifully 
thrashed  by  one  Noe  le  Joly — beaten,  as  he  says  him- 
self, like  dirty  linen  on  the  washing-board.  It  is  char- 
acteristic that  his  malice  had  notably  increased  between 
the  time  when  he  wrote  the  Small  Testament  imme- 
diately on  the  back  of  the  occurrence,  and  the  time 
when  he  wrote  the  Large  Testame?it  five  years  after. 
On  the  latter  occasion  nothing  is  too  bad  for  his 
"  damsel  with  the  twisted  nose,"  as  he  calls  her.  She 
is  spared  neither  hint  nor  accusation,  and  he  tells  his 
messenger  to  accost  her  with  the  vilest  insults.  Vil- 
lon, it  is  thought,  was  out  of  Paris  when  these  ameni- 
ties escaped  his  pen  ;  or  perhaps  the  strong  arm  of 
Noe  le  Joly  would  have  been  again  in  requisition. 
So  ends  the  love  story,  if  love  story  it  may  properly  be 
called.  Poets  are  not  necessarily  fortunate  in  love  ;  but 
they  usually  fall  among  more  romantic  circumstances 
and  bear  their  disappointment  with  a  better  grace. 


200  FRANi^OlS  VILLON, 

The  neighborhood  of  Regnier  de  Montigny  and 
Colin  de  Cayeux  was  probably  more  influential  on  his 
after  life  than  the  contempt  of  Catherine.  For  a  man 
who  is  greedy  of  all  pleasures,  and  provided  with  little 
money  and  less  dignity  of  character,  we  may  prophesy 
a  safe  and  speedy  voyage  downward.  Humble  or 
even  truckling  virtue  may  walk  unspotted  in  this  life. 
But  only  those  who  despise  the  pleasures  can  afford  to 
despise  the  opinion  of  the  world.  A  man  of  a  strong, 
heady  temperament,  like  Villon,  is  very  riifferently 
tempted.  His  eyes  lay  hold  on  all  provocations 
greedily,  and  his  heart  flames  up  at  a  look  into  im- 
perious desire  ;  he  is  snared  and  broached  to  by  any- 
thing and  ever}lhing,  from  a  pretty  face  to  •\  piece  of 
pastry  in  a  cookshop  window  ;  he  will  drink  the  rins- 
ing of  the  wine  cup,  stay  the  latest  at  the  tavern  party  ; 
tap  at  the  lit  windows,  follow  the  sound  of  singing, 
and  beat  the  whole  neighborhood  for  another  reveller, 
as  he  goes  reluctantly  homeward  ;  and  grudge  himself 
every  hour  of  sleep  as  a  black  empty  period  in  which 
he  cannot  follow  after  pleasure.  Such  a  person  is  lost 
if  he  have  not  dignity,  or,  failing  that,  at  least  pride, 
which  is  its  shadow  and  in  many  ways  its  substitute. 
Master  Francis,  I  fancy,  would  follow  his  own  eager 
instincts  without  much  spiritual  struggle.  And  we 
soon  find  him  fallen  among  thieves  in  sober,  literal 
earnest,  and  counting  as  acquaintances  the  most  dis- 
reputable people  he  could  lay  his  hands  on  :  fellows 
who  stole  ducks  in  Paris  Moat  ;  sergeants  of  the  crim- 
inal court,  and  archers  of  the  watch  ;  blackguards  who 


STUDENT,  POET,  AND  HOUSEBREAKER.     201 

slept  at  night  under  the  butchers'  stalls,  and  for  whom 
the  aforesaid  archers  peered  about  carefully  with  lan- 
terns ;  Regnier  de  Montigny,  Colin  de  Cayeux,  and 
their  crew,  ali  bound  on  a  favoring  breeze  toward  the 
gallows  ;  the  disorderly  abbess  of  Port  Royal,  who 
went  about  at  fair  time  with  soldiers  and  thieves,  and 
conducted  her  abbey  on  the  queerest  principles  ;  and 
most  likely  Perette  Mauger,  the  great  Paris  receiver  of 
stolen  goods,  not  yet  dreaming,  poor  woman  1  of  the 
last  scene  of  her  career  when  Henry  Cousin,  executor 
of  the  high  justice,  shall  bury  her,  alive  and  most  re- 
luctant, in  front  of  the  new  Montigny  gibbet.^  Nay, 
our  friend  soon  began  to  take  a  foremost  rank  in  this 
society.  He  could  string  off  verses,  which  is  always 
an  agreeable  talent  ;  and  he  could  make  himself  use- 
ful in  many  other  ways.  The  whole  ragged  army  of 
Bohemia,  and  whosoever  loved  good  cheer  without  at 
all  loving  to  work  and  pay  for  it,  are  addressed  in  con- 
temporary verses  as  the  "  Subjects  of  Fran9ois  Vil- 
lon. "  He  was  a  good  genius  to  all  hungry  and  un- 
scrupulous persons  ;  and  became  the  hero  of  a  whole 
legendary  cycle  of  tavern  tricks  and  cheateries.  At 
best,  these  were  doubtful  levities,  rather  too  thievish 
for  a  schoolboy,  rather  too  gamesome  for  a  thief.  But 
he  would  not  linger  long  in  this  equivocal  borderland. 
He  must  soon  have  complied  with  his  surroundings. 
He  was  one  who  would  go  where  the  cannikin  clinked, 
not  caring  who  should  pay  ;  and  from  supping  in  the 
wolves'  den,  there  is  but  a  step  to  hunting  with  the 

'   Chromque  ScandaU^ise,  ed.  Pantheon,  p.  237. 


202  FRAN(;01S  VILLOX, 

pack.  And  here,  as  I  am  on  the  chapter  of  his  deg- 
radation, 1  shall  say  all  I  mean  to  sa}'  about  its  dark- 
est expression,  and  be  done  with  it  for  good.  Some 
charitable  critics  see  no  more  than  a  jeti  d' esprit,  a 
graceful  and  trifling  exercise  of  the  imagination,  in  the 
grimy  ballad  of  Fat  Peg  [Grosse  Margot).  I  am  not 
able  to  follow  these  gentlemen  to  this  polite  extreme. 
Out  of  all  Villon's  works  that  ballad  stands  forth  in 
flaring  reality,  gross  and  ghastly,  as  a  thing  written  in 
a  contraction  of  disgust.  IM.  Longnon  shows  us  more 
and  more  clearly  at  every  page  that  we  are  to  read 
our  poet  literally,  that  his  names  are  the  names  of 
real  persons,  and  the  events  he  chronicles  were  actual 
events.  But  even  if  the  tendency  of  criticism  had  run 
the  other  way,  this  ballad  would  have  gone  far  to 
prove  itself.  I  can  well  understand  the  reluctance  of 
worthy  persons  in  this  matter  ;  for  of  course  it  is  un- 
pleasant to  think  of  a  man  of  genius  as  one  who  held, 
in  the  words  of  ^Marina  to  Boult — 

"  A  place,  for  which  the  pained'st  fiend 
Of  hell  would  not  in  reputation  change." 

But  beyond  this  natural  unwillingness,  the  whole 
diflficulty  of  the  case  springs  from  a  highly  virtuous 
ignorance  of  life.  Paris  now  is  not  so  different  from 
the  Paris  of  then  ;  and  the  whole  of  the  doings  of  Bo- 
hemia are  not  written  in  the  sugar-candy  pastorals  of 
IVIurger.  It  is  really  not  at  all  surprising  that  a  young 
man  of  the  fifteenth  century,  with  a  knack  of  making 
verses,  should  accept  his  bread  upon  disgraceful  terms. 


STUDENT,  POET,  AND  HOUSEBREAKER.    203 

The  race  of  those  who  do  is  not  extinct  ;  and  some 
of  them  to  this  day  write  the  prettiest  verses  imagin- 
able. .  .  .  After  this,  it  were  impossible  for  Master 
Francis  to  fall  lower  :  to  go  and  steal  for  himself 
would  be  an  admirable  advance  from  every  point  of 
view,  divine  or  human. 

And  yet  it  is  not  as  a  thief,  but  as  a  homicide,  that 
he  makes  his  first  appearance  before  angry  justice. 
On  June  5,  1455,  when  he  was  about  twenty-four, 
and  had  been  Master  of  Arts  for  a  matter  of  three 
years,  we  behold  him  for  the  first  time  quite  definitely. 
Angry  justice  had,  as  it  were,  photographed  him  in 
the  act  of  his  homicide  ;  and  INI.  Longnon,  rummag- 
ing among  old  deeds,  has  turned  up  the  negative  and 
printed  it  off  for  our  instruction.  Villon  had  been 
supping — copiously  we  may  believe — and  sat  on  a 
stone  bench  in  front  of  the  Church  of  St.  Benoit,  in 
company  with  a  priest  called  Gilles  and  a  woman  of 
the  name  of  Isabeau.  It  was  nine  o'clock,  a  mighty 
late  hour  for  the  period,  and  evidently  a  fine  summer's 
night.  Master  Francis  carried  a  mantle,  like  a  pru- 
dent man,  to  keep  him  from  the  dews  {seram),  and 
had  a  sword  below  it  dangling  from  his  girdle.  So 
these  three  dallied  in  front  of  St.  Benoit,  taking  their 
pleasure  [pour  soy  esbatre).  Suddenly  there  arrived 
upon  the  scene  a  priest,  Philippe  Chermoye  or  Ser- 
maise,  also  with  sword  and  cloak,  and  accompanied 
by  one  Master  Jehan  le  Mardi.  Sermaise,  according 
to  Villon's  account,  which  is  all  we  have  to  go  upon, 
came  up  blustering  and  denying  God  ;  as  Villon  rose 


204  FRANQOIS  VILLON, 

to  make  room  for  him  upon  the  bench,  thrust  him 
rudely  back  into  his  place  ;  and  finally  drew  his  sword 
and  cut  open  his  lower  lip,  by  what  I  should  imagine 
was  a  very  clumsy  stroke.  Up  to  this  point,  Villon 
professes  to  have  been  a  model  of  courtesy,  even  of 
feebleness  :  and  the  brawl,  in  his  version,  reads  like 
the  fable  of  the  wolf  and  the  lamb.  But  now  the 
lamb  was  roused  ;  he  drew  his  sword,  stabbed  Sermaise 
in  the  groin,  knocked  him  on  the  head  with  a  big 
stone,  and  then,  leaving  him  to  his  fate,  went  away  to 
have  his  own  lip  doctored  by  a  barber  of  the  name  of 
Fouquet.  In  one  version,  he  says  that  Gilles,  Isa- 
beau,  and  Le  Mardi  ran  away  at  the  first  high  words, 
and  that  he  and  Sermaise  had  it  out  alone  ;  in  an- 
other, Le  Mardi  is  represented  as  returning  and  wrest- 
ing Villon's  sword  from  him  :  the  reader  may  please 
himself.  Sermaise  was  picked  up,  lay  all  that  night 
in  the  prison  of  Saint  Benoit,  where  he  was  examined 
by  an  official  of  the  Chatelet  and  expressly  pardoned 
Villon,  and  died  on  the  following  Saturday  in  the 
Hotel  Dieu. 

This,  as  I  have  said,  was  in  June.  Not  before  Jan- 
uary of  the  next  year  could  Villon  extract  a  pardon 
from  the  king  ;  but  while  his  hand  was  in,  he  got 
two.  One  is  for  ' '  Frangois  des  Loges,  alias  {auire- 
meni  dil)  de  Villon  ;"  and  the  other  runs  in  the  name 
of  Francois  de  Montcorbier.  Nay,  it  appears  there 
was  a  further  complication  ;  for  in  the  narrative  of  the 
first  of  these  documents,  it  is  mentioned  that  he  passed 
himself  off  upon  Fouquet,  the  barber- surgeon,  as  one 


STUDENT,  PO£T,  AND  HOUSEBREAKER.     205 

INIichel  Mouton.  ]\I.  Longnon  has  a  theory  that  this 
unhappy  accident  with  Sermaise  was  the  cause  of  Vil- 
lon's subsequent  irregularities  ;  and  that  up  to  that 
moment  he  had  been  the  pink  of  good  behavior.  But 
the  matter  has  to  my  eyes  a  more  dubious  air.  A 
pardon  necessary  for  Des  Loges  and  another  for 
Montcorbier  ?  and  these  two  the  same  person  ?  and 
one  or  both  of  them  known  by  the  alias  of  Villon, 
however  honestly  come  by  ?  and  lastly,  in  the  heat  of 
the  moment,  a  fourth  name  thrown  out  with  an  as- 
sured countenance  .''  A  ship  is  not  to  be  trusted  that 
sails  under  so  many  colors.  This  is  not  the  simple 
bearing  of  innocence.  No — the  young  master  was 
already  treading  crooked  paths  ;  already,  he  would 
start  and  blench  at  a  hand  upon  his  shoulder,  with  the 
look  we  know  so  well  in  the  face  of  Hogarth's  Idle 
Apprentice  ;  already,  in  the  blue  devils,  he  would 
see  Henry  Cousin,  the  executor  of  high  justice,  go- 
ing in  dolorous  procession  toward  jNIontfaucon,  and 
hear  the  wind  and  the  birds  crying  around  Paris  gibbet. 

A  Gang  of  Thieves. 

In  spite  of  the  prodigious  number  of  people  who 
managed  to  get  hanged,  the  fifteenth  century  was  by 
no  means  a  bad  time  for  criminals.  A  great  confu- 
sion of  parties  and  great  dust  of  fighting  favored  the 
escape  of  private  housebreakers  and  quiet  fellows 
who  stole  ducks  in  Paris  Moat.  Prisons  were  leaky  ; 
and  as  we  shall  see,  a  man  with  a  few  crowns  in  his 
pocket   and  perhaps  some  acquaintance    among    the 


2o6  FRAiXqOIS  VILLOX. 

officials,  could  easily  slip  out  and  become  once  more 
a  free  marauder.  There  was  no  want  of  a  sanctuary 
where  he  might  harbor  until  troubles  blew  by  ;  and 
accomplices  helped  each  other  with  more  or  less  good 
faith.  Clerks,  above  all,  had  remarkable  facilities  for 
a  criminal  way  of  life  ;  for  they  were  privileged,  ex- 
cept in  cases  of  notorious  incorrigibility,  to  be  plucked 
from  the  hands  of  rude  secular  justice  and  tried  by  a 
tribunal  of  their  own.  In  1402,  a  couple  of  thieves, 
both  clerks  of  the  University,  were  condemned  to  death 
by  the  Provost  of  Paris.  As  they  were  taken  to  Mont- 
faucon,  they  kept  cry^ing  "  high  and  clearly  "  for  their 
benefit  of  clergy,  but  were  none  the  less  pitilessly 
hanged  and  gibbeted.  Indignant  Alma  Mater  inter- 
fered before  the  king  ;  and  the  Provost  was  deprived 
of  all  royal  offices,  and  condemned  to  return  the 
bodies  and  erect  a  great  stone  cross,  on  the  road  from 
Paris  to  the  gibbet,  graven  with  the  effigies  of  these  two 
holy  martyrs. '  We  shall  hear  more  of  the  benefit  of 
clergy  ;  for  after  this  the  reader  will  not  be  surprised 
to  meet  with  thieves  in  the  shape  of  tonsured  clerks, 
or  even  priests  and  monks. 

To  a  knot  of  such  learned  pilferers  our  poet  certainly 
belonged  ;  and  by  turning  over  a  few  more  of  I\I.  Long- 
non's  negatives,  we  shall  get  a  clear  idea  of  their 
character  and  doings.  IMontigny  and  De  Cayeux  are 
names  already  known  ;  Guy  Tabary,  Petit- Jehan, 
Dom  Nicolas,  little  Thibault,  who  was  both  clerk  and 
goldsmith,  and  who  made  picklocks  and  melted  plate 

*  ]Vlonstrelet  ;  Pantheon  Litterairi\  p.  26. 


STUDENT,  POET,  AND  HOUSEBREAKER.    207 

for  himself  and  his  companions — with  these  the  reader 
has  still  to  become  acquainted.  Petit- Jehan  and  De 
Cayeux  were  handy  fellows  and  enjoyed  a  useful  pre- 
eminence in  honor  of  their  doings  with  the  picklock. 
' '  Diciiis  des  Cahyeiis  est  fortis  operator  crochetorum, ' ' 
says  Tabary's  interrogation,  "  scd  di'ctus  Petit-Jchaii, 
ejus  sochis,  est  f orchis  operator.'"  But  the  flower  of 
the  flock  was  little  Thibault  ;  it  was  reported  that  no 
lock  could  stand  before  him  ;  he  had  a  persuasive 
hand  ;  let  us  salute  capacity  wherever  we  may  find  it. 
Perhaps  the  term  gang  is  not  quite  properly  applied 
to  the  persons  whose  fortunes  we  are  now  about  to 
follow ;  rather  they  were  independent  malefactors, 
socially  intimate,  and  occasionally  joining  together  for 
some  serious  operation,  just  as  modern  stockjobbers 
form  a  syndicate  for  an  important  loan.  Nor  were 
they  at  all  particular  to  any  branch  of  misdoing. 
They  did  not  scrupulously  confine  themselves  to  a 
single  sort  of  theft,  as  I  hear  is  common  among  modern 
thieves.  They  were  ready  for  anything,  from  pitch- 
and-toss  to  manslaughter.  Montigny,  for  instance, 
had  neglected  neither  of  these  extremes,  and  we  find 
him  accused  of  cheating  at  games  of  hazard  on  the  one 
hand,  and  on  the  other  of  the  murder  of  one  Thevenin 
Pensete  in  a  house  by  the  Cemetery  of  St.  John.  If 
time  had  only  spared  us  some  particulars,  might  not 
this  last  have  furnished  us  with  the  matter  of  a  grisly 
winter's  tale  ? 

At  Christmas-time  in  1456.  readers  of  Villon  will  re- 
member that  he  was  engaged  on  the  Small  Testament. 


2o8  FRANQOIS    VILLO.Y, 

About  the  same  period,  circa  festuni  nativiiaiis  Domini, 
he  took  part  in  a  memorable  supper  at  the  Mule 
Tavern,  in  front  of  the  Church  of  St.  ^Mathurin. 
Tabary,  who  seems  to  have  been  very  much  Villon's 
creature,  had  ordered  the  supper  in  the  course  of  the 
afternoon.  Pie  was  a  man  who  had  had  troubles  in 
his  time  and  languished  in  the  Bishop  of  Paris' s 
prisons  on  a  suspicion  of  picking  locks  ;  confiding, 
convivial,  not  very  astute  —  who  had  copied  out  a 
whole  improper  romance  with  his  own  right  hand. 
This  supper-party  was  to  be  his  first  introduction  to 
De  Cayeux  and  Petit-Jehan,  which  was  probably  a 
matter  of  some  concern  to  the  poor  man's  muddy 
wits  ;  in  the  sequel,  at  least,  he  speaks  of  both  with 
an  undisguised  respect,  based  on  professional  inferior- 
ity in  the  matter  of  picklocks.  Dom  Nicolas,  a  Pic- 
ardy  monk,  was  the  fifth  and  last  at  table.  When 
supper  had  been  despatched  and  fairly  washed  down, 
we  may  suppose,  with  white  Baigneux  or  red  Beaune, 
which  were  favorite  wines  among  the  fellowship,  Tabary 
was  solemnly  sworn  over  to  secrecy  on  the  night's  per- 
formances ;  and  the  party  left  the  I\Iule  and  proceeded 
to  an  unoccupied  house  belonging  to  Robert  de  Saint- 
Simon.  This,  over  a  low  wall,  they  entered  without 
difficulty.  All  but  Tabary  took  off  their  upper  gar- 
ments ;  a  ladder  was  found  and  applied  to  the  high 
wall  which  separated  Saint- Simon's  house  from  the 
court  of  the  College  of  Navarre  ;  the  four  fellows  in 
their  shirt-sleeves  (as  we  might  say)  clambered  over 
in   a  twinkling  ;  and   IMaster  Guy  Tabary   remained 


STUDENT,  FOE T,  AND  HO  USEBREAKER.    209 

alone  beside  the  overcoats.  From  the  court  the  burg- 
lars made  their  way  into  the  vestry  of  the  chapel,  where 
they  found  a  large  chest,  strengthened  with  iron  bands 
and  closed  with  four  locks.  One  of  these  locks  they 
picked,  and  then,  by  levering  up  the  corner,  forced 
the  other  three.  Inside  was  a  small  coffer,  of  walnut 
wood,  also  barred  with  iron,  but  fastened  with  only 
three  locks,  which  were  all  comfortably  picked  by  way 
of  the  keyhole.  In  the  walnut  coffer — a  joyous  sight 
by  our  thieves'  lantern — were  five  hundred  crowns  of 
gold.  There  was  some  talk  of  opening  the  aumries. 
where,  if  they  had  only  known,  a  booty  eight  or  nine 
times  greater  lay  ready  to  their  hand  ;  but  one  of  the 
party  (I  have  a  humorous  suspicion  it  was  Dom  Nico- 
las, the  Picardy  monk)  hurried  them  away.  It  was 
ten  o'clock  when  they  mounted  the  ladder  ;  it  was 
about  midnight  befory  Tabary  beheld  them  coming 
back.  To  him  they  gave  ten  crowns,  and  promised  a 
share  of  a  two-crown  dinner  on  the  morrow  ;  whereat 
we  may  suppose  his  mouth  watered.  In  course  of 
time,  he  got  wind  of  the  real  amount  of  their  booty 
and  understood  how  scurvily  he  had  been  used  ;  but 
he  seems  to  have  borne  no  malice.  How  could  he, 
against  such  superb  operators  as  Petit- Jehan  and  De 
Cayeux  ;  or  a  person  like  Villon,  who  could  have 
made  a  new  improper  romance  out  of  his  own  head, 
instead  of  merely  copying  an  old  one  with  mechanical 
right  hand  ? 

The  rest  of  the  winter  was  not  uneventful  for  the 
gang.     First  they  made  a  demonstration  against  the 


2IO  FRANQOIS    VILLON, 

Church  of  St.  Mathuiin  after  chaUces,  and  were  ig- 
nominiously  chased  away  by  barking  dogs.  Then 
Tabary  fell  out  with  Casin  ChoUet,  one  of  the  fellows 
who  stole  ducks  in  Paris  Moat,  who  subsequently  be- 
came a  sergeant  of  the  Chatelet  and  distinguished 
himself  by  misconduct,  followed  by  imprisonment  and 
public  castigation,  during  the  wars  of  Louis  Eleventh. 
The  quarrel  was  not  conducted  with  a  proper  regard 
to  the  king's  peace,  and  the  pair  publicly  belabored 
each  other  until  the  police  stepped  in,  and  Master 
Tabary  was  cast  once  more  into  the  prisons  of  the 
Bishop.  While  he  still  lay  in  durance,  another  job 
was  cleverly  executed  by  the  band  in  broad  daylight, 
at  the  Augustine  INIonastery.  Brother  Guillaume 
Coiffier  was  beguiled  by  an  accomplice  to  St.  Mathu- 
rin  to  say  mass  ;  and  during  his  absence,  his  chamber 
was  entered  and  five  or  six  hundred  crowns  in  money 
and  some  silver  plate  successfully  abstracted.  A  mel- 
ancholy man  was  Coififier  on  his  return  !  Eight  crowns 
from  this  adventure  were  forwarded  by  little  Thibault 
to  the  incarcerated  Tabary  ;  and  with  these  he  bribed 
the  jailer  and  reappeared  in  Paris  taverns.  Some  time 
before  or  shortly  after  this,  Villon  set  out  for  Angers, 
as  he  had  promised  in  the  Small  Tesiameni.  The 
object  of  this  excursion  was  not  merely  to  avoid  the 
presence  of  his  cruel  mistress  or  the  strong  arm  of 
Noe  le  Joly,  but  to  plan  a  deliberate  robbery  on  his 
uncle  the  monk.  As  soon  as  he  had  properly  studied 
the  ground,  the  others  were  to  go  over  in  force  from 
Paris — picklocks  and  all — and  away  with  my  uncle's 


STUDENT,  FOE  T,  AND  HO  USEBREAKER.     2 1 1 

Strongbox  !  This  throws  a  comical  sidelight  on  his 
own  accusation  against  his  relatives,  that  they  had 
"  forgotten  natural  duty"  and  disowned  him  because 
he  was  poor.  A  poor  relation  is  a  distasteful  circum- 
stance at  the  best,  but  a  poor  relation  who  plans  de- 
liberate robberies  against  those  of  his  blood,  and 
trudges  hundreds  of  weary  leagues  to  put  them  into 
execution,  is  surely  a  little  on  the  wrong  side  of  tolera- 
tion. The  uncle  at  Angers  may  have  been  mon- 
strously undutlful  ;  but  the  nephew  from  Paris  was 
upsides  with  him. 

On  the  23d  April,  that  venerable  and  discreet  per- 
son, Master  Pierre  Marchand,  Curate  and  Prior  of 
Paray-le-Monial,  in  the  diocese  of  Chartres,  arrived  in 
Paris  and  put  up  at  the  sign  of  the  Three  Chandeliers, 
in  the  Rue  de  la  Huchette.  Next  day,  or  the  day 
after,  as  he  was  breakfasting  at  the  sign  of  the  Arm- 
chair, he  fell  into  talk  with  two  customers,  one  of 
whom  was  a  priest  and  the  other  our  friend  Tabary. 
The  idiotic  Tabary  became  mighty  confidential  as  to 
his  past  life.  Pierre  Marchand,  who  was  an  acquaint- 
ance of  Guillaume  Coiffier's  and  had  sympathized 
with  him  over  his  loss,  pricked  up  his  ears  at  the 
mention  of  picklocks,  and  led  on  the  transcriber  of 
improper  romances  from  one  thing  to  another,  until 
they  were  fast  friends.  For  picklocks  the  Prior  of 
Paray  professed  a  keen  curiosity  ;  but  Tabarv,  upon 
some  late  alarm,  had  thrown  all  his  into  the  Seine. 
Let  that  be  no  difficulty,  however,  for  was  there  not 
little  Thibault,  who  could   make  them  of   all  shapes 


212  FRANQOIS    VILLON, 

and  sizes,  and  to  whom  Taban',  smellin^^  an  accom- 
plice, would  be  only  too  glad  to  introduce  his  new  ac- 
quaintance ?  On  the  morrow,  accordingly,  they  met ; 
and  Tabary,  after  having  first  wet  his  whistle  at  the 
Prior's  expense,  led  him  to  Notre  Dame  and  presented 
him  to  four  or  five  "  young  companions,"  who  were 
keeping  sanctuarj'  in  the  church.  They  were  all 
clerks,  recently  escaped,  like  Tabary  himself,  from  the 
episcopal  prisons.  Among  these  we  may  notice  Thi- 
bault,  the  operator,  a  litde  fellow  of  twenty-six,  wear- 
ing long  hair  behind.  The  Prior  expressed,  through 
Tabary,  his  anxiety  to  become  their  accomplice  and 
altogether  such  as  they  were  {de  leiir  sorie  el  de  leiirs 
complices).  INIighty  polite  they  showed  themselves, 
and  made  him  many  fine  speeches  in  return.  But 
for  all  that,  perhaps  because  they  had  longer  heads 
than  Tabary,  perhaps  because  it  is  less  easy  to  wheedle 
men  in  a  body,  they  kept  obstinately  to  generalities 
and  gave  him  no  information  as  to  their  exploits,  past, 
present,  or  to  come.  I  suppose  Tabary  groaned  under 
this  reserve  ;  for  no  sooner  were  he  and  the  Prior 
out  of  the  church  than  he  fairly  emptied  his  heart  to 
him,  gave  him  full  details  of  many  hanging  matters  in 
the  past,  and  explained  the  future  intentions  of  the 
band.  The  scheme  of  the  hour  was  to  rob  another 
Augustine  monk,  Robert  de  la  Porte,  and  in  this  the 
Prior  agreed  to  take  a  hand  with  simulated  greed. 
Thus,  in  the  course  of  two  days,  he  had  turned  this 
wineskin  of  a  Tabary  inside  out.  For  a  while  longer 
the  farce  was  carried  on  ;  the  Prior  was  introduced  to 


STUDENT,  FOE  T,  A ND  II O  USEBREAKER.     2 1 3 

Petit-Jehan,  whom  he  describes  as  a  Httle,  very  smart 
man  of  thirty,  with  a  black  beard  and  a  short  jacket ; 
an  appointment  was  made  and  broken  in  the  de  la 
Porte  affair  ;  Tabary  had  some  breakfast  at  the  Prior's 
charge  and  leaked  out  more  secrets  under  the  influ- 
ence of  wine  and  friendship  ;  and  then  all  of  a  sud- 
den, on  the  17th  of  May,  an  alarm  sprang  up,  the 
Prior  picked  up  his  skirts  and  walked  quietly  over  to 
the  Chatelet  to  make  a  deposition,  and  the  whole 
band  took  to  their  heels  and  vanished  out  of  Paris  and 
the  sight  of  the  police. 

Vanish  as  they  like,  they  all  go  with  a  clog  about 
their  feet.  Sooner  or  later,  here  or  there,  they  will 
be  caught  in  the  fact,  and  ignominiously  sent  home. 
From  our  vantage  of  four  centuries  afterward,  it  is  odd 
and  pitiful  to  watch  the  order  in  which  the  fugitives 
are  captured  and  dragged  in. 

Montigny  was  the  first.  In  August  of  that  same 
year,  he  was  laid  by  the  heels  on  many  grievous 
counts  ;  sacrilegious  robberies,  frauds,  incorrigibility, 
and  that  bad  business  about  Thevenin  Pensete  in  the 
house  by  the  Cemetery  of  St.  John.  He  was  reclaimed 
by  the  ecclesiastical  authorities  as  a  clerk  ;  but  the 
claim  was  rebutted  on  the  score  of  incorrigibility,  and 
ultimately  fell  to  the  ground  ;  and  he  was  condemned 
to  death  by  the  Provost  of  Paris.  It  was  a  very  rude 
hour  for  Montigny,  but  hope  was  not  yet  over.  He 
was  a  fellow  of  some  birth  ;  his  father  had  been  king's 
pantler ;  his  sister,  probably  married  to  some  one 
about  the  Court,  was  in  the  family  way,  and  her  health 


2  14  FRANQOIS    VILLON, 

would  be  endangered  if  the  execution  was  proceeded 
witli.  So  down  comes  Charles  the  Seventh  with  let- 
ters of  mercy,  commuting  the  penalty  to  a  year  in  a 
dungeon  on  bread  and  water,  and  a  pilgrimage  to  the 
shrine  of  St.  James  in  Galicia.  Alas  I  the  document 
was  incomplete  ;  it  did  not  contain  the  full  tale  of 
Montigny's  enormities  ;  it  did  not  recite  that  he  had 
been  denied  benefit  of  clergy,  and  it  said  nothing 
about  Thevenin  Pensete.  IMontigny's  hour  was  at 
hand.  Benefit  of  clergy,  honorable  descent  from 
king's  pantler,  sister  in  the  family  wa}',  royal  letters 
of  commutation — all  were  of  no  avail.  He  had  been 
in  prison  in  Rouen,  in  Tours,  in  Bordeaux,  and  four 
times  already  in  Paris  ;  and  out  of  all  these  he  had 
come  scathless  ;  but  now  he  must  make  a  little  ex- 
cursion as  far  as  ?tlontfaucon  with  Plenry  Cousin,  ex- 
ecutor of  high  justice.  There  let  him  swing  among 
the  carrion  crows. 

About  a  year  later,  in  July  1458,  the  police  laid 
hands  on  Tabary.  Before  the  ecclesiastical  commis- 
sary he  was  twice  examined,  and,  on  the  latter  occa- 
sion, put  to  the  question  ordinary  and  extraordinary. 
What  a  dismal  change  from  pleasant  suppers  at  the 
]\Iule,  where  he  sat  in  triumph  with  expert  operators 
and  great  wits  !  He  is  at  the  lees  of  life,  poor  rogue  ; 
and  those  fingers  which  once  transcribed  improper 
romances  are  now  agonizingly  stretched  upon  the  rack. 
We  have  no  sure  knowledge,  but  we  may  have  a 
shrewd  guess  of  the  conclusion.  Tabary,  the  admirer, 
would  go  the  same  wav  as  those  whom  he  admired. 


S  TUB  EN  T,  POET,  A  ND  HO  USEBREA  KER.    2 1 5 

The  last  we  hear  of  is  CoHn  de  Cayeux.  He  was 
caught  in  autumn  1460,  in  the  great  Church  of  St. 
Leu  d'Esserens,  which  makes  so  fine  a  figure  in  the 
pleasant  Oise  valley  between  Creil  and  Beaumont. 
He  was  reclaimed  by  no  less  than  two  bishops  ;  but 
the  Procureur  for  the  Provost  held  fast  by  incorrigible 
Colin.  1460  was  an  ill-starred  year  :  for  justice  was 
making  a  clean  sweep  of  "  poor  and  indigent  persons, 
thieves,  cheats,  and  lockpickers,"  in  the  neighbor- 
hood of  Paris  ;'  and  Colin  de  Cayeux,  with  many 
others,  was  condemned  to  death  and  hanged.* 

Villon  and  the  Gallows. 

Villon  was  still  absent  on  the  Angers  expedition 
when  the  Prior  of  Paray  sent  such  a  bombshell 
among  his  accomplices  ;  and  the  dates  of  his  return 
and  arrest  remain  undiscoverable.  M.  Campaux 
plausibly  enough  opined  for  the  autumn  of  1457, 
which  would  make  him  closely  follow  on  Montigny, 
and  the  first  of  those  denounced  by  the  Prior  to  fall 
into  the  toils.  We  may  suppose,  at  least,  that  it  was 
not  long  thereafter  ;  we  may  suppose  him  competed 
for  between  lay  and  clerical  Courts  ;  and  we  may  sup- 
pose him  alternately  pert  and  impudent,  humble  and 


'   Chron.  Scand.  ut  supra. 

"^  Here  and  there,  principally  in  the  order  of  events,  this  article  differs 
from  M.  Longnon's  own  reading  of  his  material.  The  ground  on  which  he 
defers  the  execution  of  Montigny  and  De  Cayeux  beyond  the  date  of  their 
trials  seems  insufficient.  There  is  a  law  of  parsimony  for  the  construction 
of  historical  documents  ;  simplicity  is  the  first  duty  of  narration  ;  and 
hanged  they  were. 


2l6  FRANQOIS    VILLON, 

fawning,  in  his  defence.  But  at  the  end  of  all  sup- 
posing, we  come  upon  some  nuggets  of  fact.  For 
first,  he  was  put  to  the  question  by  water.  He. who 
had  tossed  off  so  many  cups  of  white  Baigneux  or  red 
Beaune,  now  drank  water  through  linen  folds,  until 
his  bowels  were  flooded  and  his  heart  stood  still. 
After  so  much  raising  of  the  elbow,  so  much  outcry  of 
fictitious  thirst,  here  at  last  was  enough  drinking  for 
a  lifetime.  Truly,  of  our  pleasant  vices,  the  gods 
make  whips  to  scourge  us.  And  secondly  he  was 
condemned  to  be  hanged.  A  man  may  have  been 
expecting  a  catastrophe  for  years,  and  yet  find  himself 
unprepared  when  it  arrives.  Certainly,  Villon  found, 
in  this  legitimate  issue  of  his  career,  a  very  staggering 
and  grave  consideration.  Every  beast,  as  he  says, 
clings  bitterly  to  a  whole  skin.  If  everything  is  lost, 
and  even  honor,  life  still  remains  ;  nay,  and  it  be- 
comes, like  the  ewe  lamb  in  Nathan's  parable,  as  dear 
as  all  the  rest.  "  Do  you  fancy,"  he  asks,  in  a  lively 
ballad,  "  that  I  had  not  enough  philosophy  under  my 
hood  to  cry  out  :  *  I  appeal  '  .?  If  I  had  made  any 
bones  about  the  matter,  I  should  have  been  planted 
upright  in  the  fields,  by  the  St.  Denis  Road  " — JMont- 
faucon  being  on  the  way  to  St.  Denis.  An  appeal  to 
Parliament,  as  we  saw  in  the  case  of  Colin  de  Cayeux, 
did  not  necessarily  lead  to  an  acquittal  or  a  commu- 
tation ;  and  while  the  matter  was  pending,  our  poet 
had  ample  opportunity  to  reflect  on  his  position. 
Hanging  is  a  sharp  argument,  and  to  swing  with  many 
others  on  the  gibbet  adds  a  horrible  corollary  for  the 


STUDENT,  FOE  T,  AND  HO USEBREAKER.    2 1 7 

imagination.  With  the  aspect  of  IMontfaucon  he  was 
well  acquainted  ;  indeed,  as  the  neighborhood  appears 
to  have  been  sacred  to  junketing  and  nocturnal  picnics 
of  wild  young  men  and  women,  he  had  probably 
studied  it  under  all  varieties  of  hour  and  weather. 
And  now,  as  he  lay  in  prison  waiting  the  mortal  push, 
these  different  aspects  crowded  back  on  his  imagina- 
tion with  a  new  and  startling  significance  ;  and  he 
wrote  a  ballad,  by  way  of  epitaph  for  himself  and  his 
companions,  which  remains  unique  in  the  annals  of 
mankind.  It  is,  in  the  highest  sense,  a  piece  of  his 
biography  : — 

"  La  pluj^e  nous  a  debuez  et  lavez, 
Et  le  soleil  dessechez  et  noirciz  ; 
Pies,  corbeaulx,  nous  ont  las  yeux  cavez, 
Et  arrachez  la  barbe  et  les  sourcilz. 
Jamais,  nul  temps,  nous  ne  sommes  rassis  ; 
Puis  5a,  puis  la,  comme  le  vent  varie, 
A  son  plaisir  sans  cesser  nous  charie, 
Plus  becquetez  d'oiseaulx  que  dez  a  couldre. 
Ne  soyez  done  de  nostre  confrairie, 
Mais  priez  Dieu  que  tous  nous  vueille  absouldre." 

Here  is  some  genuine  thieves'  literature  after  so 
much  that  was  spurious  ;  sharp  as  an  etching,  written 
with  a  shuddering  soul.  There  is  an  intensity  of  con- 
sideration in  the  piece  that  shows  it  to  be  the  transcript 
of  familiar  thoughts.  It  is  the  quintessence  of  many 
a  doleful  nightmare  on  the  straw,  when  he  felt  himself 
swing  helpless  in  the  wind,  and  saw  the  birds  turn 
about  him,  screaming  and  menacing  his  eyes. 


2iS  FRAN(:OIS    VILLON, 

And,  after  all,  the  Parliament  changed  his  sentence 
into  one  of  banishment  ;  and  to  Roussillon,  in  Dau- 
phiny,  our  poet  must  carry  his  woes  without  delay. 
Travellers  between  Lyons  and  Marseilles  may  remem- 
ber a  station  on  the  line,  some  way  below  V^ienne, 
where  the  Rhone  fleets  seaward  between  vine-clad  hills. 
This  was  Villon's  Siberia.  It  would  be  a  little  warm 
in  summer  perhaps,  and  a  little  cold  in  winter  in  tha* 
draughty  valley  between  two  great  mountain  fields  ; 
but  what  with  the  hills,  and  the  racing  river,  and  the 
fiery  Rhone  wines,  he  was  little  to  be  pitied  on  the 
conditions  of  his  exile.  Villon,  in  a  remarkably  bad 
ballad,  written  in  a  breath,  heartily  thanked  and  ful- 
somely  belauded  the  Parliament ;  the  envoi,  like  the 
proverbial  postscript  of  a  lady's  letter,  containing  the 
pith  of  his  performance  in  a  request  for  three  days' 
delay  to  settle  his  affairs  and  bid  his  friends  farewell. 
He  was  probably  not  followed  out  of  Paris,  like  An- 
toine  Fradin,  the  popular  preacher,  another  exile  of  a 
few  years  later,  by  weeping  multitudes  ;'  but  I  dare  say 
one  or  two  rogues  of  his  acquaintance  would  keep 
him  company  for  a  mile  or  so  on  the  south  road,  and 
drink  a  bottle  with  him  before  they  turned.  For 
banished  people,  in  those  days,  seem  to  have  set  out 
on  their  own  responsibility,  in  their  own  guard,  and 
at  their  own  expense.  It  was  no  joke  to  make  one's 
way  from  Paris  to  Roussillon  alone  and  penniless  in 
the  fifteenth  century.  Villon  says  he  left  a  rag  of  his 
tails  on  every  bush.     Indeed,  he  must  have  had  many 

'  Chron.  Stand. ^  p.  338. 


STUDENT,  POE T,  AND  HO  USEBREAKER.    2 1 9 

a  weary  tramp,  many  a  slender  meal,  and  many  a  to- 
do  with  blustering  captains  of  the  Ordonnance.  But 
with  one  of  his  light  fingers,  we  may  fancy  that  he  took 
as  good  as  he  gave  ;  for  every  rag  of  his  tail,  he  would 
manage  to  indemnify  himself  upon  the  population  in 
the  shape  of  food,  or  wine,  or  ringing  money  ;  and 
his  route  would  be  traceable  across  France  and  Bur- 
gundy by  housewives  and  inn-keepers  lamenting  over 
petty  thefts,  like  the  track  of  a  single  human  locust. 
A  strange  figure  he  must  have  cut  in  the  eyes  of  the 
good  country  people  :  this  ragged,  blackguard  city 
poet,  with  a  smack  of  the  Paris  student,  and  a  smack 
of  the  Paris  street  arab,  posting  along  the  highways, 
in  rain  or  sun,  among  the  green  fields  and  vineyards. 
For  himself,  he  had  no  taste  for  rural  loveliness  ; 
green  fields  and  vineyards  would  be  mighty  indifferent 
to  Master  Francis  ;  but  he  would  often  have  his  tongue 
in  his  cheek  at  the  simplicity  of  rustic  dupes,  and 
often,  at  city  gates,  he  might  stop  to  contemplate  the 
gibbet  with  its  swinging  bodies,  and  hug  himself  on 
his  escape. 

How  long  he  stayed  at  Roussillon,  how  far  he  be- 
came the  protege  of  the  Bourbons,  to  whom  that  town 
belonged,  or  when  it  was  that  he  took  part,  under  the 
auspices  of  Charles  of  Orleans,  in  a  rhyming  tourna- 
ment to  be  referred  to  once  again  in  the  pages  of  the 
present  volume,  are  matters  that  still  remain  in  dark- 
ness, in  spite  o,f  M.  Longnon's  diligent  rummaging 
among  archives.  When  we  next  find  him,  in  sum- 
mer 1 46 1,  alas  !  lie  is  once  more  in  durance  :    this 


2  20  FRAN(;OIS    VILLON, 

time  at  Meun-sur-Loire,  in  the  prisons  of  Thibault 
d'Aussigny,  Bishop  of  Orleans.  He  had  been  low- 
ered in  a  basket  into  a  noisome  pit,  where  he  lay,  all 
summer,  gnawing  hard  crusts  and  railing  upon  fate. 
His  teeth,  he  says,  were  like  the  teeth  of  a  rake  :  a 
touch  of  haggard  portraiture  all  the  more  real  for  be- 
ing excessive  and  burlesque,  and  all  the  more  proper 
to  the  man  for  being  a  caricature  of  his  own  misery. 
His  eyes  were  "bandaged  with  thick  walls."  It 
might  blow  hurricanes  overhead  ;  the  lightning  might 
leap  in  high  heaven  ;  but  no  word  of  all  this  reached 
him  in  his  noisome  pit.  "  II  n'entre,  ou  gist,  n'escler 
ni  tourbiilon. "  Above  all,  he  was  fevered  with  envy 
and  anger  at  the  freedom  of  others  ;  and  his  heart 
flov/ed  over  into  curses  as  he  thought  of  Thibault 
d'Aussigny,  walking  the  streets  in  God's  sunlight,  and 
blessing  people  with  extended  fingers.  So  much  we 
find  sharply  lined  in  his  own  poems.  Why  he  was 
cast  again  into  prison — how  he  had  again  managed  to 
shave  the  gallows — this  we  know  not,  nor,  from  the 
destruction  of  authorities,  are  we  ever  likely  to  learn. 
But  on  October  2d,  1461,  or  some  day  immediately 
preceding,  the  new  King,  Louis  Eleventh,  made  his 
joyous  entry  into  INIeun.  Now  it  was  a  part  of  the 
formality  on  such  occasions  for  the  new  King  to  liber- 
ate certain  prisoners  ;  and  so  the  basket  was  let  down 
into  Villon's  pit,  and  hastily  did  Master  Francis 
scramble  in,  and  was  most  joyfully  hauled  up,  and 
shot  out,  blinking  and  tottering,  but  once  more  a  free 
man,  into  the  blessed  sun  and  wind.     Now  or  never 


STUDENT,  FOE T,  AND  HO USEBREAA'ER.     2 2 1 

is  the  time  for  verses  !  Such  a  happy  revolution 
would  turn  the  head  of  a  stocking- weaver,  and  set  him 
iingling  rhymes.  And  so — after  a  voyage  to  Paris, 
where  he  finds  Montigny  and  De  Cayeux  clattering 
their  bones  upon  the  gibbet,  and  his  three  pupils  roy- 
stering  in  Paris  streets,  "  with  their  thumbs  under 
their  girdles," — down  sits  Master  Francis  to  write  his 
Large  Testament,  and  perpetuate  his  name  in  a  sort 
of  glorious  ignominy. 

The  Large  Testament. 
Of  this  capital  achievement  and,  with  it,  of  Vil- 
lon's style  in  general,  it  is  here  the  place  to  speak. 
The  Large  Testame^it  is  a  hurly-burly  of  cynical  and 
sentimental  reflections  about  life,  jesting  legacies  to 
friends  and  enemies,  and,  interspersed  among  these 
many  admirable  ballades,  both  serious  and  absurd. 
With  so  free  a  design,  no  thought  that  occurred  to 
him  would  need  to  be  dismissed  without  expression  ; 
and  he  could  draw  at  full  length  the  portrait  of  his 
own  bedevilled  soul,  and  of  the  bleak  and  blackguardly 
world  which  was  the  theatre  of  his  exploits  and  suffer- 
ings. If  the  reader  can  conceive  something  between 
the  slap-dash  inconsequence  of  Byron's  Don  Juan  and 
the  racy  humorous  gravity  and  brief  noble  touches 
that  distinguish  the  vernacular  poems  of  Burns,  he 
will  have  formed  some  idea  of  Villon's  style.  To  the 
latter  writer — except  in  the  ballades,  which  are  quite 
his  own,  and  can  be  paralleled  from  no  other  language 
known  tome — he  bears  a  particular  resemblance.     In 


2  22  FKANQOIS    VILLON, 

common  with  Burns  he  has  a  certain  rugged  com- 
pression, a  brutal  vivacity  of  epithet,  a  homely  vigor, 
a  delight  in  local  personalities,  and  an  interest  in 
many  sides  of  life,  that  are  often  despised  and  passed 
over  by  more  effete  and  cultured  poets.  Both  also, 
in  their  strong,  easy  colloquial  way,  tend  to  become 
difficult  and  obscure  ;  the  obscurity  in  the  case  of 
Villon  passing  at  times  into  the  absolute  darkness  of 
cant  language.  They  are  perhaps  the  only  two  great 
masters  of  expression  who  keep  sending  their  readers 
to  a  glossary. 

'*  Shall  we  not  dare  to  say  of  a  thief,"  asks  Mon- 
taigne, "that  he  has  a  handsome  leg?"  It  is  a  far 
more  serious  claim  that  we  have  to  put  forward  in  be- 
half of  Villon.  Beside  that  of  his  contemporaries, 
his  writing,  so  full  of  color,  so  eloquent,  so  pictu- 
resque, stands  out  in  an  almost  miraculous  isolation. 
If  only  one  or  two  of  the  chroniclers  could  have  taken 
a  leaf  out  of  his  book,  history  would  have  been  a  pas- 
time, and  the  fifteenth  century  as  present  to  our  minds 
as  the  age  of  Charles  Second.  This  gallows-bird  was 
the  one  great  writer  of  his  age  and  country,  and  ini- 
tiated modern  literature  for  France.  Boileau,  long 
ago,  in  the  period  of  perukes  and  snuff-boxes,  recog- 
nized him  as  the  first  articulate  poet  in  the  language  ; 
and  if  we  measure  him,  not  by  priority  of  merit,  but 
living  duration  of  influence,  not  on  a  comparison  with 
obscure  forerunners,  but  with  great  and  famous  suc- 
cessors, we  shall  install  this  ragged  and  disreputable 
figure  in  a  far  higher  niche  in  glory's  temple  than  was 


S  T  UDENT,  POET,  A  ND  HO  USEE  RE  A  KER.     223 

ever  dreamed  of  by  the  critic.  It  is,  in  itself,  a 
memorable  fact  that,  before  1542,  in  the  very  dawn  of 
printing,  and  while  modern  France  was  in  the  mak- 
ing, the  works  of  Villon  ran  through  seven  different 
editions.  Out  of  him  flows  much  of  Rabelais  ;  and 
through  Rabelais,  directly  and  indirectly,  a  deep, 
permanent,  and  growing  inspiration.  Not  only  his 
style,  but  his  callous  pertinent  way  of  looking  upon 
the  sordid  and  ugly  sides  of  life,  becomes  everv  day 
a  more  specific  feature  in  the  literature  of  France. 
And  only  the  other  year,  a  work  of  some  power  ap- 
peared in  Paris,  and  appeared  with  infinite  scandal, 
which  owed  its  whole  inner  significance  and  much  of 
its  outward  form  to  the  study  of  our  rhyming  thief. 

The  world  to  which  he  introduces  us  is,  as  before 
said,  blackguardly  and  bleak.  Paris  swarms  before 
us,  full  of  famine,  shame,  and  death  ;  monks  and  the 
servants  of  great  lords  hold  high  wassail  upon  cakes 
and  pastry  ;  the  poor  man  licks  his  lips  before  the 
baker's  window  ;  people  with  patched  eyes  sprawl  all 
night  under  the  stalls  ;  chuckling  Tabary  transcribes 
an  improper  romance  ;  bare-bosomed  lasses  and  ruffling 
students  swagger  in  the  streets  ;  the  drunkard  goes 
stumbling  homeward  ;  the  graveyard  is  full  of  bones  ; 
and  away  on  Montfaucon,  Colin  de  Cayeux  and  Mon- 
tigny  hang  draggled  in  the  rain.  Is  there  nothing 
better  to  be  seen  than  sordid  misery  and  worthless 
joys .?  Only  where  the  poor  old  mother  of  the  poet 
kneels  in  church  below  painted  windows,  and  makes 
tremulous  supplication  to  the  Mother  of  God. 


224  FRANQOIS    VILLON, 

In  our  mixed  world,  full  of  green  fields  and  happy 
lovers,  where  not  long  before,  Joan  of  Arc  had  led 
one  of  the  highest  and  noblest  lives  in  the  whole  story 
of  mankind,  this  was  all  worth  chronicling  that  our 
poet  could  perceive.  His  eyes  were  indeed  sealed 
with  his  own  filth.  He  dwelt  all  his  life  in  a  pit  more 
noisome  than  the  dungeon  at  Meun,  In  the  moral 
world,  also,  there  are  large  phenomena  not  cognizable 
out  of  holes  and  corners.  Loud  winds  blow,  speed- 
ing home  deep-laden  ships  and  sweeping  rubbish 
from  the  earth  ;  the  lightning  leaps  and  cleans  the 
face  of  heaven  ;  high  purposes  and  brave  passions 
shake  and  sublimate  men's  spirits  ;  and  meanwhile, 
in  the  narrow  dungeon  of  his  soul,  Villon  is  mumbling 
crusts  and  picking  vermin. 

Along  with  this  deadly  gloom  of  outlook,  we  must 
take  another  characteristic  of  his  work  :  its  unrivalled 
insincerity.  I  can  give  no  better  similitude  of  this 
quality  than  I  have  given  already  :  that  he  comes  up 
with  a  whine,  and  runs  away  with  a  whoop  and  his 
finger  to  his  nose.  His  pathos  is  that  of  a  profes- 
sional mendicant  who  should  happen  to  be  a  man  of 
genius  ;  his  levity  that  of  a  bitter  street  arab,  full  of 
bread.  On  a  first  reading,  the  pathetic  passages  pre- 
occupy the  reader,  and  he  is  cheated  out  of  an  alms 
in  the  shape  of  sympathy.  But  when  the  thing  is 
studied  the  illusion  fades  away  :  in  the  transitions, 
above  all,  we  can  detect  the  evil,  ironical  temper  of 
the  man  ;  and  instead  of  a  flighty  work,  where  many 
crude  but  genuine   feelings  tumble   together  for   the 


STUDENT,  FOE  T,  AND  I/O USEBREAKER.     225 

mastery  as  in  the  lists  of  tournament,  we  are  tempted 
to  think  of  the  Large  Testament  as  of  one  long-drawn 
epical  grimace,  pulled  by  a  merry-andrew,  who  has 
found  a  certain  despicable  eminence  over  human  re- 
spect and  human  affections  by  perching  himself  astride 
upon  the  gallows.  Between  these  two  views,  at  best, 
all  temperate  judgments  will  be  found  to  fall  ;  and 
rather,  as  I  imagine,  toward  the  last. 

There  were  two  things  on  which  he  felt  with  perfect 
and,  in  one  case,  even  threatening  sincerity. 

The  first  of  these  was  an  undisguised  envy  of  those 
richer  than  himself.  He  was  forever  drawing  a  paral- 
lel, already  exemplified  from  his  own  words,  between 
the  happy  life  of  the  well- to  do  and  the  miseries  of  the 
poor.  Burns,  too  proud  and  honest  not  to  work,  con- 
tinued through  all  reverses  to  sing  of  poverty  with  a 
light,  defiant  note.  Beranger  waited  till  he  was  him- 
self beyond  the  reach  of  want,  before  writing  the  Old 
Vagabond  or  Jacques.  Samuel  Johnson,  although  he 
was  very  sorry  to  be  poor,  "  was  a  great  arguer  for  the 
advantages  of  poverty"  in  his  ill  days.  Thus  it  is  that 
brave  men  carry  their  crosses,  and  smile  with  the  fox 
burrowing  in  their  vitals.  But  Villon,  who  had  not 
the  courage  to  be  poor  with  honesty,  now  whiningly 
implores  our  sympathy,  now  shows  his  teeth  upon  the 
dung-heap  with  an  ugly  snarl.  He  envies  bitterly, 
envies  passionately.  Poverty,  he  protests,  drives  men 
to  steal,  as  hunger  makes  the  wolf  sally  from  the  forest. 
The  poor,  he  goes  on,  will  always  have  a  carping  word 
to  say,  or,  if  that  outlet  be  denied,  nourish  rebellious 


2  26  FRANCOIS    VILLON, 

thoughts.  It  is  a  calumny  on  the  noble  army  of  the 
poor.  Thousands  in  a  small  way  oi  life,  ay,  and 
even  in  the  smallest,  go  through  life  with  tenfold  as 
much  honor  and  dignity  and  peace  of  mind,  as  the 
lich  gluttons  whose  dainties  and  state-beds  awakened 
Villon's  covetous  temper.  And  every  morning's  sun 
sees  thousands  who  pass  whistling  to  their  toil.  But 
Villon  was  the  "  mauvais  pauvre"  defined  by  Victor 
Hugo,  and,  in  its  English  expression,  so  admirably 
stereotyped  by  Dickens.  He  was  the  first  wicked 
sans-culotte.  He  is  the  man  of  genius  with  the  mole- 
skin cap.  He  is  mighty  pathetic  and  beseeching  here 
in  the  street,  but  I  would  not  go  down  a  dark  road 
with  him  for  a  large  consideration. 

The  second  of  the  points  on  which  he  was  genuine 
and  emphatic  was  common  to  the  middle  ages  ;  a 
deep  and  somewhat  snivelling  conviction  of  the  tran- 
sitory nature  of  this  life  and  the  pity  and  horror  of 
death.  Old  age  and  the  grave,  with  some  dark  and 
yet  half-sceptical  terror  of  an  after-world — these  were 
ideas  that  clung  about  his  bones  like  a  disease.  An 
old  ape,  as  he  says,  may  play  all  the  tricks  in  its  reper- 
tor}',  and  none  of  them  will  tickle  an  audience  into 
good  humor.  "  Tousjours  vieil  synge  est  desplai- 
sant. "  It  is  not  the  old  jester  who  receives  most  rec- 
ognition at  a  tavern  party,  but  the  young  fellow,  fresh 
and  handsome,  who  knows  the  new  slang,  and  carries 
off  his  vice  with  a  certain  air.  Of  this,  as  a  tavern 
jester  himself,  he  would  be  pointedly  conscious.  As 
for  the  women  with  whom  he  was  best  acquainted,  his 


STUDENT,  FOE  T,  AND  HO USEBREAKER.    227 

reflections  on  their  old  age,  in  all  their  harrowing 
pathos,  shall  remain  in  the  original  for  me,  Horace 
has  disgraced  himself  to  something  the  same  tune  ; 
but  what  Horace  throws  out  with  an  ill-favored  laugh, 
Villon  dwells  on  with  an  almost  maudlin  whimper. 

It  is  in  death  that  he  finds  his  truest  inspiration  ;  in 
the  swift  and  sorrowful  change  that  overtakes  beauty  ; 
in  the  strange  revolution  by  which  great  fortunes  and 
renowns  are  diminished  to  a  handful  of  churchyard 
dust ;  and  in  the  utter  passing  away  of  what  was  once 
lovable  and  mighty.  It  is  in  this  that  the  mixed  tex- 
ture of  his  thought  enables  him  to  reach  such  poig- 
nant and  terrible  effects,  and  to  enchance  pity  with 
ridicule,  like  a  man  cutting  capers  to  a  funeral  march. 
It  is  in  this,  also,  that  he  rises  out  of  himself  into  the 
higher  spheres  of  art.  So,  in  the  ballade  by  which  he 
is  best  known,  he  rings  the  changes  on  names  that 
once  stood  for  beautiful  and  queenly  women,  and  are 
now  no  more  than  letters  and  a  legend.  "Where 
are  the  snows  of  yester  year  ?' '  runs  the  burden.  And 
so,  in  another  not  so  famous,  he  passes  in  review  the 
different  degrees  of  bygone  men,  from  the  holy  Apos- 
tles and  the  golden  Emperor  of  the  East,  down  to  the 
heralds,  pursuivants,  and  trumpeters,  who  also  bore 
their  part  in  the  world's  pageantries  and  ate  greedily 
at  great  folks'  tables  :  all  this  to  the  refrain  of  "So 
much  carry  the  winds  away!"  Probably,  there  was 
some  melancholy  in  his  mind  for  a  yet  lower  grade, 
and  IMontigny  and  Colin  de  Cayeux  clattering  their 
bones  on  Paris  gibbet.     Alas,  and  with   so   pitiful  an 


2  28  FRANQOIS    VILLON. 

experience  of  life,  Villon  can  offer  us  nothing  but  ter- 
ror and  lamentation  about  death  !  No  one  has  ever 
more  skilfully  communicated  his  own  disenchant- 
ment ;  no  one  ever  blown  a  more  ear-piercing  note  of 
sadness.  This  unrepentant  thief  can  attain  neither  to 
Christian  confidence,  nor  to  the  spirit  of  the  bright 
Greek  saying,  that  whom  the  gods  love  die  early.  It 
is  a  poor  heart,  and  a  poorer  age,  that  cannot  accept 
the  conditions  of  life  with  some  heroic  readiness. 
***** 

The  date  of  the  Large  Testament  is  the  last  date  in 
the  poet's  biography.  After  having  achieved  that  ad- 
mirable and  despicable  performance,  he  disappears 
into  the  night  from  whence  he  came.  How  or  when 
he  died,  whether  decently  in  bed  or  trussed  up  to  a 
gallows,  remains  a  riddle  for  foolhardy  commentators. 
It  appears  his  health  had  suffered  in  the  pit  at  Meun  ; 
he  was  thirty  years  of  age  and  quite  bald  ;  with  the 
notch  in  his  under  lip  where  Sermaise  had  struck  him 
with  the  sword,  and  what  wrinkles  the  reader  may 
imagine.  In  default  of  portraits,  this  is  all  I  have 
been  able  to  piece  together,  and  perhaps  even  the  bald- 
ness should  be  taken  as  a  figure  of  his  destitution.  A 
sinister  dog,  in  all  likelihood,  but  with  a  look  in  his 
eye,  and  the  loose  flexile  mouth  that  goes  with  wit 
and  an  overweening  sensual  temperament.  Certainly 
the  sorriest  figure  on  the  rolls  of  fame. 


CHARLES   OF   ORLEANS. 

For  one  who  was  no  great  politician,  nor  (as  men 
go)  especially  wise,  capable  or  virtuous,  Charles  of 
Orleans  is  more  than  usually  enviable  to  all  who  love 
that  better  sort  of  fame  which  consists  in  being  known 
not  widely,  but  intimately.  "To  be  content  that 
time  to  come  should  know  there  was  such  a  man,  not 
caring  whether  they  knew  more  of  him,  or  to  subsist 
under  naked  denominations,  without  deserts  or  noble 
acts,"  is,  says  Sir  Thomas  Browne,  a  frigid  ambition. 
It  is  to  some  more  specific  memory  that  youth  looks 
forward  in  its  vigils.  Old  kings  are  sometimes  disin- 
terred in  all  the  emphasis  of  life,  the  hands  untainted 
by  decay,  the  beard  that  had  so  often  wagged  in  camp 
or  senate  still  spread  upon  the  royal  bosom  ;  and  in 
busts  and  pictures,  some  similitude  of  the  great  and 
beautiful  of  former  days  is  handed  down.  In  this 
way,  public  curiosity  may  be  gratified,  but  hardly  any 
private  aspiration  after  fame.  It  is  not  likely  that 
posterity  will  fall  in  love  with  us,  but  not  impossible 
that  it  may  respect  or  sympathize  ;  and  so  a  man 
would  rather  leave  behind  him  the  portrait  of  his  spirit 
than  a  portrait  of  his  face,  figiira  animi  magis  qiiam 
corporis.  Of  those  who  have  thus  survived  themselves 
most  completely,  left  a  sort  of  personal  seduction  be- 


230  CHARLES  OF  ORLEANS. 

hind  ihem  in  the  world,  and  retained,  after  death,  the 
art  of  making  friends,  IMontaigne  and  Samuel  John- 
son certainly  stand  first.  But  we  have  portraits  of  all 
sorts  of  men,  from  august  Caesar  to  the  king's  dwarf  ; 
and  all  sorts  of  portraits,  from  a  Titian  treasured  in 
the  Louvre  to  a  profile  over  the  grocer's  chimney-shelf. 
And  so  in  a  less  degree,  but  no  less  truly,  than  the 
spirit  of  Montaigne  lives  on  in  the  delightful  Essays, 
that  of  Charles  of  Orleans  survives  in  a  few  old  songs 
and  old  account-books  ;  and  it  is  still  in  the  choice  of 
the  reader  to  make  this  duke's  acquaintance,  and,  if 
their  humors  suit,  become  his  friend. 

I. 

His  birth — if  we  are  to  argue  from  a  man's  parenta 
— was  above  his  merit.  It  is  not  merely  that  he  was 
the  grandson  of  one  king,  the  father  of  another,  and 
the  uncle  of  a  third  ;  but  something  more  specious 
was  to  be  looked  for  from  the  son  of  his  father,  Louis 
de  Valois,  Duke  of  Orleans,  brother  to  the  mad  king 
Charles  VL,  lover  of  Queen  Isabel,  and  the  leading 
patron  of  art  and  one  of  the  leading  politicians  in 
France.  And  the  poet  might  have  inherited  yet 
higher  virtues  from  his  mother,  Valentina  of  Milan,  a 
very  pathetic  figure  of  the  age,  the  faithful  wife  of  an 
unfaithful  husband,  and  the  friend  of  a  most  unhappy 
king.  The  father,  beautiful,  eloquent,  and  accom- 
plished, exercised  a  strange  fascination  over  his  con- 
temporaries ;    and  among  those  who  dip  nowadays 


CHARLES  OF  ORLEANS.  231 

into  the  annals  of  the  time  there  are  not  many — and 
these  few  are  little  to  be  envied — who  can  resist  the 
fascination  of  the  mother.  All  mankind  owe  her  a 
debt  of  gratitude  because  she  brought  some  comfort 
into  the  life  of  the  poor  madman  who  wore  the  crown 
of  France. 

Born  (May  1391)  of  such  a  noble  stock,  Charles 
was  to  know  from  the  first  all  favors  of  nature  and  art. 
His  father's  gardens  were  the  admiration  of  his  con- 
temporaries ;  his  castles  were  situated  in  the  most 
agreeable  parts  of  France,  and  sumptuously  adorned. 
We  have  preserved,  in  an  inventory  of  1403,  the  de- 
scription of  tapestried  rooms  where  Charles  may  have 
played  in  childhood.'  "A  green  room,  with  the 
ceiling  full  of  angels,  and  the  dossier  of  shepherds  and 
shepherdesses  seeming  {^faisant  contenance)  to  eat  nuts 
and  cherries.  A  room  of  gold,  silk  and  worsted,  with 
a  device  of  little  children  in  a  river,  and  the  sky  full  of 
birds.  A  room  of  green  tapestry,  showing  a  knight 
and  lady  at  chess  in  a  pavilion.  Another  greenroom, 
with  shepherdesses  in  a  trellised  garden  worked  in 
gold  and  silk.  A  carpet  representing  cherry-trees, 
where  there  is  a  fountain,  and  a  lady  gathering  cher- 
ries in  a  basin."  These  were  some  of  the  pictures 
over  which  his  fancy  might  busy  itself  of  an  afternoon, 
or  at  morning  as  he  lay  awake  in  bed.  With  our 
deeper  and  more  logical  sense  of  life,  we  can  have  no 
idea  how  large  a  space  in  the  attention  of  mediaeval 
men  might  be  occupied   by  such  figured   hangings  on 

1  Charapollion-Figeac's  Louis  et  Charles  d' Orldaiis,  p.  348. 


232  CHARLES   OF  ORLEANS. 

the  wall.  There  was  something  timid  and  purblind 
in  the  view  they  had  of  the  world.  Morally,  they 
saw  nothing  outside  of  traditional  axioms  ;  and  little 
of  the  physical  aspect  of  things  entered  vividly  into 
their  mind,  beyond  what  was  to  be  seen  on  church 
windows  and  the  walls  and  floors  of  palaces.  The 
reader  will  remember  how  Villon's  mother  conceived 
of  heaven  and  hell  and  took  all  her  scanty  stock  of 
theology  from  the  stained  glass  that  threw  its  light 
upon  her  as  she  prayed.  And  there  is  scarcely  a 
detail  of  external  effect  in  the  chronicles  and  romances 
of  the  time,  but  might  have  been  borrowed  at  second 
hand  from  a  piece  of  tapestry.  It  was  a  stage  in  the 
history  of  mankind  which  we  may  see  paralleled,  to 
some  extent,  in  the  first  infant  school,  where  the 
representations  of  lions  and  elephants  alternate  round 
the  wall  with  moral  verses  and  trite  presentments  of 
the  lesser  virtues.  So  that  to  live  in  a  house  of  many 
pictures  was  tantamount,  for  the  time,  to  a  liberal 
education  in  itself. 

At  Charles's-  birth  an  order  of  knighthood  was  in- 
augurated in  his  honor.  At  nine  years  old,  he  was  a 
squire  ;  at  eleven,  he  had  the  escort  of  a  chaplain 
and  a  schoolmaster  ;  at  twelve,  his  uncle  the  king 
made  him  a  pension  of  twelve  thousand  livres  d'or.' 
He  saw  the  most  brilliant  and  the  most  learned  per- 
sons of  France,  in  his  father's  Court  ;  and  would  not 
fail  to  notice  that  these  brilliant  and  learned  persons 

'  D'Hericault's  admirable  Memoir,  prefixed  to  his  edition  of  Charles's 
works,  vol.  i.  p.  xi. 


CHARLES  OF  ORLEANS.  233 

were  one  and  all  engaged  in  rhyming.  Indeed,  if  it 
is  difficult  to  realize  the  part  played  by  pictures,  it  is 
perhaps  even  more  difficult  to  realize  that  played  by 
verses  in  the  polite  and  active  history  of  the  age.  At 
the  siege  of  Pontoise,  English  and  French  exchanged 
defiant  ballades  over  the  walls. '  If  a  scandal  hap- 
pened, as  in  the  loathsome  thirty-third  story  of  the 
Cent  Noiivelles  Noiivelles,  all  the  wits  must  make  rondels 
and  chansonettes,  which  they  would  hand  from  one 
to  another  with  an  unmanly  sneer.  Ladies  carried 
their  favorite's  ballades  in  their  girdles."  Margaret  of 
Scotland,  all  the  world  knows  already,  kissed  Alain 
Chartier's  lips  in  honor  of  the  many  virtuous  thoughts 
and  golden  sayings  they  had  uttered  ;  but  it  is  not  so 
well  known,  that  this  princess  was  herself  the  most  in- 
dustrious of  poetasters,  that  she  is  supposed  to  have 
hastened  her  death  by  her  literary  vigils,  and  sometimes 
wrote  as  many  as  twelve  rondels  in  the  day.  ^  It  was 
in  rhyme,  even,  that  the  young  Charles  should  learn 
his  lessons.  He  might  get  all  manner  of  instruction 
in  the  truly  noble  art  of  the  chase,  not  without  a 
smack  of  ethics  by  the  way,  from  the  compendious 
didactic  poem  of  Gace  de  la  Eigne.  Nay,  and  it  was 
in  rhyme  that  he  should  learn  rhyming  :  in  the  verses 
of  his  father's  JMaitre  d'llotel,  Eustache  Deschamps, 
which  treated  of  "  I'art  de  dictier  et  de  faire  chan9ons, 
ballades,  virelais  et  rondeaux,"  along  with  many  other 

*  Vallet  de  Viriville,  Charles  VII.  et  son  EJ>ogue,  ii.  428,  note  2. 
'  See  Lecoy  de  la  Marche,  Le  Roi  Rend,  i.  167. 
»  Vallet,  Charles  VII.,  ii.  85,  86,  note  2. 


234  CHARLES  OF  ORLEANS. 

matters  worth  attention,  from  the  courts  of  Heaven  to 
the  misgovernment  of  France. '  At  this  rate,  all 
knowledge  is  to  be  had  in  a  goody,  and  the  end  of  it 
is  an  old  song.  We  need  not  wonder  when  we  hear 
from  Monstrelet  that  Charles  was  a  very  well-educated 
person.  He  could  string  Latin  texts  together  by  the 
hour,  and  make  ballades  and  rondels  better  than  Eus- 
tache  Deschamps  himself.  He  had  seen  a  mad  king 
who  would  not  change  his  clothes,  and  a  drunken  em- 
peror who  could  not  keep  his  hand  from  the  wine- 
cup.  He  had  spoken  a  great  deal  with  jesters  and 
fiddlers,  and  with  the  profligate  lords  who  helped  his 
father  to  waste  the  revenues  of  France.  He  had  seen 
ladies  dance  on  into  broad  daylight,  and  much  burn- 
ing of  torches  and  waste  of  dainties  and  good  wine.  - 
And  when  all  is  said,  it  was  no  very  helpful  prepara- 
tion for  the  battle  of  life.  "I  believe  Louis  XL," 
writes  Comines,  "  would  not  have  saved  himself,  if  he 
had  not  been  very  differently  brought  up  from  such 
other  lords  as  I  have  seen  educated  in  this  country  ; 
for  these  were  taught  nothing  but  to  play  the  jacka- 
napes with  finery  and  fine  words."  ^  I  am  afraid 
Charles  took  such  lessons  to  heart,  and  conceived  of 
life  as  a  season   principally  for  junketing  and  war. 


1  Champollion-Figeac,  193-198. 

^  Ibid.  2og. 

3  The  student  will  see  that  there  are  facts  cited,  and  expressions  borrowed, 
in  this  paragraph,  from  a  period  extending  over  almost  the  whole  of 
Charles's  life,  instead  of  being  confined  entirely  to  his  boyhood.  As  I  do 
not  believe  there  was  any  change,  so  I  do  not  believe  there  is  any  anachro- 
nism involved. 


CHARLES  OF  ORLEANS.  235 

His  view  of  the  whole  duty  of  man,  so  empty,  vain, 
and  wearisome  to  us,  was  yet  sincerely  and  consistently 
held.  When  he  came  in  his  ripe  years  to  compare 
the  glory  of  two  kingdoms,  England  and  France,  it 
was  on  three  points  only,  —  pleasures,  valor,  and 
riches, — that  he  cared  to  measure  them  ;  and  in  the 
very  outset  of  that  tract  he  speaks  of  the  life  of  the 
great  as  passed,  "  whether  in  arms,  as  in  assaults,  bat- 
tles, and  sieges,  or  in  jousts  and  tournaments,  in  high 
and  stately  festivities  and  in  funeral  solemnities."  ' 

When  he  was  no  more  than  thirteen,  his  father  had 
him  affianced  to  Isabella,  virgin-widow  of  our  Richard 
II.  and  daughter  of  his  uncle  Charles  VI.  ;  and,  two 
years  after  (June  29,  1406),  the  cousins  were  married 
at  Compiegne,  he  fifteen,  she  seventeen  years  of  age. 
It  was  in  every  way  a  most  desirable  match.  The  bride 
brought  five  hundred  thousand  francs  of  dowry.  The 
ceremony  was  of  the  utmost  magnificence,  Louis  of 
Orleans  figuring  in  crimson  velvet,  adorned  with  no 
less  than  seven  hundred  and  ninety-five  pearls,  gath- 
ered together  expressly  for  this  occasion.  And  no 
doubt  it  must  have  been  very  gratifying  for  a  young 
gentleman  of  fifteen,  to  play  the  chief  part  in  a  pageant 
so  gayly  put  upon  the  stage.  Only,  the  bridegroom 
might  have  been  a  little  older  ;  and,  as  ill-luck  would 
have  it,  the  bride  herself  was  of  this  way  of  thinking, 
and  would   not  be  consoled  for  the  loss  of  her  title  as 


1  The  Debate  between  the  Heralds  0/ France  and  England,  translated 
and  admirably  edited  by  Mr.  Henry  Pyne.  For  the  attribution  of  this 
tract  to  Charles,  the  reader  is  referred  to  Mr.  Pyne's  conclusive  argument 


236  CHARLES  OF  ORLEANS. 

queen,  or  the  contemptible  age  of  her  new  husband. 
Pleuroit  fori  ladite  Isabeau  j  the  said  Isabella  wept 
copiously. '  It  is  fairly  debatable  whether  Charles  was 
much  to  be  pitied  when,  three  years  later  (Septembei 
1409),  this  odd  marriage  was  dissolved  by  death. 
Short  as  it  was,  however,  this  connection  left  a  lasting 
stamp  upon  his  mind  ;  and  we  find  that,  in  the  last 
decade  of  his  life,  and  after  he  had  remarried  for  per- 
haps the  second  time,  he  had  not  yet  forgotten  or  for- 
given the  violent  death  of  Richard  II.  "  Ce  mauvais 
cas" —  that  ugly  business,  he  writes,  has  yet  to  be 
avenged. 

The  marriage  festivity  was  on  the  threshold  of  evil 
days.  The  great  rivalry  between  Louis  of  Orleans  and 
John  the  Fearless,  Duke  of  Burgundy,  had  been  for- 
sworn with  the  most  reverend  solemnities.  But  the 
feud  was  only  in  abeyance,  and  John  of  Burgund}-  still 
conspired  in  secret.  On  November  23,  1407 — in  that 
black  winter  when  the  frost  lasted  six-and-sixty  days 
on  end — a  summons  from  the  king  reached  Louis  of 
Orleans  at  the  Hotel  Barbette,  where  he  had  been  sup- 
ping with  Queen  Isabel.  It  was  seven  or  eight  in  the 
evening,  and  the  inhabitants  of  the  quarter  were  abed. 
He  set  forth  in  haste,  accompanied  by  two  squires  rid- 
ing on  one  horse,  a  page,  and  a  few  varlets  running 
with  torches.  As  he  rode,  he  hummed  to  himself  and 
trifled  with  his  glove.  And  so  riding,  he  was  beset  by 
the  bravoes  of  his  enemy  and  slain.  My  lord  of  Bur- 
gundy set  an  ill  precedent  in  this  deed,  as  he  found 

'  Des  Ursins. 


CHARLES   OF  ORLEANS.  237 

some  years  after  on  the  bridge  of  Montereau  ;  and 
even  in  the  meantime  he  did  not  profit  quietly  by  his 
rival's  death.  The  horror  of  the  other  princes  seems 
to  have  perturbed  himself  ;  he  avowed  his  guilt  in  the 
council,  tried  to  brazen  it  out,  finally  lost  heart  and 
fled  at  full  gallop,  cutting  bridges  behind  him,  toward 
Bapaume  and  Lille.  And  so  there  we  have  the  head 
of  one  faction,  who  had  just  made  himself  the  most 
formidable  man  in  France,  engaged  in  a  remarkably 
hurried  journey,  with  black  care  on  the  pillion.  And 
meantime,  on  the  other  side,  the  widowed  duchess 
came  to  Paris  in  appropriate  mourning,  to  demand 
justice  for  her  husband's  death.  Charles  VI. ,  who 
was  then  in  a  lucid  interval,  did  probably  all  that  he 
could,  when  he  raised  up  the  kneeling  suppliant  with 
kisses  and  smooth  words.  Things  were  at  a  dead- lock. 
The  criminal  might  be  in  the  sorriest  fright,  but  he 
was  still  the  greatest  of  vassals.  Justice  was  easy  to 
ask  and  not  difficult  to  promise  ;  how  it  was  to  be  ex- 
ecuted was  another  question.  No  one  in  France  was 
strong  enough  to  punish  John  of  Burgundy  ;  and  per- 
haps no  one,  except  the  widow,  very  sincere  in  wish- 
ing to  punish  him. 

She,  indeed,  was  eaten  up  of  zeal  ;  but  the  intensity 
of  her  eagerness  wore  her  out ;  and  she  died  about  a 
year  after  the  murder,  of  grief  and  indignation,  unre- 
quited love  and  unsatisfied  resentment.  It  was  during 
the  last  months  of  her  life  that  this  fiery  and  generous 
woman,  seeing  the  soft  hearts  of  her  own  children, 
looked  with  envy  on  a  certain  natural  son  of  her  hus- 


238  CHARLES   OF  ORLEANS. 

band's  destined  to  become  famous  in  the  sequel  as  the 
Bastard  of  Orleans,  or  the  brave  Dunois.  "  You  were 
slole7i  from  me,"  she  said  ;  "  it  is  you  who  are  fit  to 
avenge  your  father.  "  These  are  not  the  words  of  or- 
dinary mourning,  or  of  an  ordinary  woman.  It  is  a 
saying,  over  which  Balzac  would  have  rubbed  his  epis- 
copal hands.  That  the  child  who  was  to  avenge  her 
husband  had  not  been  born  out  of  her  body,  was  a 
thing  intolerable  to  Valentina  of  IMilan  ;  and  the  ex- 
pression of  this  singular  and  tragic  jealousy  is  preserved 
to  us  by  a  rare  chance,  in  such  straightforward  and 
vivid  words  as  we  are  accustomed  to  hear  only  on  the 
stress  of  actual  life,  or  in  the  theatre.  In  history — 
where  we  see  things  as  in  a  glass  darkly,  and  the  fashion 
of  former  times  is  brought  before  us,  deplorably  adul- 
terated and  defaced,  fitted  to  very  vague  and  pompous 
words,  and  strained  through  many  men's  minds  of 
everything  personal  or  precise  —  this  speech  of  the 
widowed  duchess  startles  a  reader,  somewhat  as  the 
footprint  startled  Robinson  Crusoe.  A  human  voice 
breaks  in  upon  the  silence  of  the  study,  and  the  stu- 
dent is  aware  of  a  fellow-creature  in  his  world  of  docu- 
ments. With  such  a  clew  in  hand,  one  may  imagine 
how  this  wounded  lioness  would  spur  and  exasperate 
the  resentment  of  her  children,  and  what  would  be  the 
last  words  of  counsel  and  command  she  left  behind 
her. 

With  these  instances  of  his  dying  mother — almost 
a  voice  from  the  tomb — still  tingling  in  his  ears,  the 
position  of  young  Charles  of  Orleans,  when  he  was  left 


CHARLES  OF  ORLEANS.  239 

at  the  head  of  that  great  house,  was  curiously  similar 
to  that  of  Shakspeare's  Hamlet.  The  times  were  out 
of  joint ;  here  was  a  murdered  father  to  avenge  on  a 
powerful  murderer  ;  and  here,  in  both  cases,  a  lad  of 
inactive  disposition  born  to  set  these  matters  right. 
Valentina's  commendation  of  Dunois  involved  a  judg- 
ment on  Charles,  and  that  judgment  was  exactly  cor- 
rect. Whoever  might  be,  Charles  was  not  the  man  to 
avenge  his  father.  Like  Hamlet,  this  son  of  a  dear 
father  murdered  was  sincerely  grieved  at  heart.  Like 
Hamlet,  too,  he  could  unpack  his  heart  with  words, 
and  wrote  a  most  eloquent  letter  to  the  king,  com- 
plaining that  what  was  denied  to  him  would  not  be 
denied  "  to  the  lowest  born  and  poorest  man  on 
earth."  Even  in  his  private  hours  he  strove  to  pre- 
serve a  lively  recollection  of  his  injury,  and  keep  up 
the  native  hue  of  resolution.  He  had  gems  engraved 
with  appropriate  legends,  hortatory  or  threatening  : 
*' Dieu  le  scei,"  God  knows  it;  or  "  Souvcnez-vous 
de—''  Remember  !  '  It  is  only  toward  the  end  that 
the  two  stories  begin  to  differ  ;  and  in  some  points 
the  historical  version  is  the  more  tragic.  Hamlet 
only  stabbed  a  silly  old  councillor  behind  the  arras  ; 
Charles  of  Orleans  trampled  France  for  five  years  under 
the  hoofs  of  his  banditti.  The  miscarriage  of  Ham- 
let's vengeance  was  confined,  at  widest,  to  the  palace  ; 
the  ruin  wrought  by  Charles  of  Orleans  was  as  broad 
as  France. 

Yet  the  first  act  of  the  young  duke  is  worthy  of  hon- 

1  Michelet,  iv.  App.  179,  p.  337. 


240  CHARLES   OF  ORLEANS. 

orable  mention.  Prodigal  Louis  had  made  enormous 
debts  ;  and  there  is  a  story  extant,  to  illustrate  how 
lightly  he  himself  regarded  these  commercial  obliga- 
tions. It  appears  that  Louis,  after  a  narrow  escape  he 
made  in  a  thunder-storm,  had  a  smart  access  of  peni- 
tence, and  announced  he  would  pay  his  debts  on  the 
following  Sunday.  !\Iore  than  eight  hundred  creditors 
presented  themselves,  but  by  that  time  the  devil  was 
well  again,  and  they  were  shown  the  door  with  more 
gayety  than  politeness.  A  time  when  such  cynical 
dishonesty  was  possible  for  a  man  of  culture  is  not,  it 
will  be  granted,  a  fortunate  epoch  for  creditors.  When 
the  original  debtor  was  so  lax,  we  may  imagine  how 
an  heir  would  deal  with  the  incumbrances  of  his  in- 
heritance. On  the  death  of  Philip  the  Forward,  father 
of  that  John  the  Fearless  whom  we  have  seen  at  work, 
the  widow  went  through  the  ceremony  of  a  public  re- 
nunciation of  goods  ;  taking  off  her  purse  and  girdle, 
she  left  them  on  the  grave,  and  thus,  by  one  notable 
act,  cancelled  her  husband's  debts  and  defamed  his 
honor.  The  conduct  of  young  Charles  of  Orleans  was 
very  different.  To  meet  the  joint  liabilities  of  his 
father  and  mother  (for  Valentina  also  was  lavish),  he 
had  to  sell  or  pledge  a  quantity  of  jewels  ;  and  yet  he 
would  not  take  advantage  of  a  pretext,  even  legally 
valid,  to  diminish  the  amount.  Thus,  one  Godefroi 
Lefevre,  having  disbursed  many  odd  sums  for  the  late 
duke,  and  received  or  kept  no  vouchers,  Charles  or- 
dered that  he  should  be  believed  upon  his  oath.'     To 

1   ChampoUion-Figeac,  pp.  279-82. 


CHARLES   OF  ORLEANS.  241 

a  modern  mind  this  seems  as  honorable  to  his  father's 
memory  as  if  John  the  Fearless  had  been  hanged  as 
high  as  Haman.  And  as  things  fell  out,  except  a  re- 
cantation from  the  University  of  Paris,  which  had  justi- 
fied the  murder  out  of  party  feeling,  and  various  other 
purely  paper  reparations,  this  was  about  the  outside  of 
what  Charles  was  to  effect  in  that  direction.  He  lived 
five  years,  and  grew  up  from  sixteen  to  twenty-one,  in 
the  midst  of  the  most  horrible  civil  war,  or  series  of 
civil  wars,  that  ever  devastated  France  ;  and  from  first 
to  last  his  wars  were  ill-starred,  or  else  his  victories 
useless.  Two  years  after  the  murder  (March  1409), 
John  the  Fearless  having  the  upper  hand  for  the  mo- 
ment, a  shameful  and  useless  reconciliation  took 
place,  by  the  king's  command,  in  the  church  of  Our 
Lady  at  Chartres.  The  advocate  of  the  Duke  of  Bur- 
gundy stated  that  Louis  of  Orleans  had  been  killed 
"for  the  good  of  the  king's  person  and  realm." 
Charles  and  his  brothers,  with  tears  of  shame,  under 
protest,  pour  7iepas  desobeir  auroi,  forgave  their  father's 
murderer  and  swore  peace  upon  the  missal.  It  was, 
as  I  say,  a  shameful  and  useless  ceremony  ;  the  very 
greffier,  entering  it  in  his  register,  wrote  in  the  margin, 
"  Pax,  pax,  inqidt  Propheta,  etnoneslpax."  '  Charles 
was  soon  after  allied  with  the  abominable  Bernard 
d'Armagnac,  even  betrothed  or  married  to  a  daughter 
of  his,  called  by  a  name  that  sounds  like  a  contradic- 
tion in  terms.  Bonne  d'Armagnac.  From  that  time 
forth,  throughout  all  this  monstrous  period — a  very 

>  Michelet,  iv.  pp.  123-4. 


242  CHARLES   OF  ORLEANS. 

nightmare  in  the  history  of  France — he  is  no  more 
than  a  stalking-horse  for  the  ambitious  Gascon.  Some^ 
times  the  smoke  hfts,  and  you  can  see  him  for  the 
tvvinkHng  of  an  eye,  a  very  pale  figure  ;  at  one  mo 
ment  there  is  a  rumor  he  will  be  crowned  king  ;  at  an- 
other, when  the  uproar  has  subsided,  he  will  be  heard 
still  crying  out  for  justice  ;  and  the  next  (14 12),  he  is 
showing  himself  to  the  applauding  populace  on  the 
same  horse  with  John  of  Burgundy.  But  these  are 
exceptional  seasons,  and,  for  the  most  part,  he  merely 
rides  at  the  Gascon's  bridle  over  devastated  France, 
His  very  party  go,  not  by  the  name  of  Orleans,  but 
by  the  name  of  Armagnac.  Paris  is  in  the  hands  of 
the  butchers  :  the  peasants  have  taken  to  the  woods. 
Alliances  are  made  and  broken  as  if  in  a  country 
dance  ;  the  English  called  in,  now  by  this  one,  now 
by  the  other.  Poor  people  sing  in  church,  with  white 
faces  and  lamentable  music  :  "  Domine  Jesii,  parce 
populo  tuo,  dirige  in  viavi  pads  prmcipes. ' '  And  the 
end  and  upshot  of  the  whole  affair  for  Charles  of  Orleans 
is  another  peace  with  John  the  Fearless.  France  is 
once  more  tranquil,  with  the  tranquillity  of  ruin  ;  he 
may  ride  home  again  to  Blois,  and  look,  with  what 
countenance  he  may,  on  those  gems  he  had  got  en- 
graved in  the  early  days  of  his  resentment,  "  Souvenez- 
vous  de — "  Remember!  He  has  killed  Polonius,  to 
be  sure  ;  but  the  king  is  never  a  penny  the  worse. 


CHARLES  OF  ORLEANS.  243 


II. 

From  the  battle  of  Agincourt  (Oct.  14 15)  dates  the 
second  period  of  Charles's  life.  The  English  reader 
will  remember  the  name  of  Orleans  in  the  play  of 
Henry  V.  j  and  it  is  at  least  odd  that  we  can  trace  a 
resemblance  between  the  puppet  and  the  original. 
The  interjection,  "  I  have  heard  a  sonnet  begin  so  to 
one's  mistress"  (Act  iii.  scene  7),  may  very  well  indi- 
cate one  who  was  already  an  expert  in  that  sort  of 
trifle  ;  and  the  game  of  proverbs  he  plays  with  the 
Constable  in  the  same  scene,  would  be  quite  in  char- 
acter for  a  man  who  spent  many  years  of  his  life  cap- 
ping verses  with  his  courtiers.  Certainly,  Charles  was 
in  the  great  battle  with  five  hundred  lances  (say,  three 
thousand  men),  and  there  he  was  made  prisoner  as  he 
led  the  van.  According  to  one  story,  some  ragged 
English  archer  shot  him  down  ;  and  some  diligent 
English  Pistol,  hunting  ransoms  on  the  field  of  battle, 
extracted  him  from  under  a  heap  of  bodies  and  retailed 
him  to  our  King  Henry.  He  was  the  most  important 
capture  of  the  day,  and  used  with  all  consideration. 
On  the  way  to  Calais,  Henry  sent  him  a  present  of 
bread  and  wine  (and  bread,  you  will  remember,  was 
an  article  of  luxury  in  the  English  camp),  but  Charles 
would  neither  eat  nor  drink.  Thereupon,  Henry 
came  to  visit  him  in  his  quarters.  "  Noble  cousin,'' 
said  he,  "  how  are  you?"  Charles  replied  that  hs 
was   well.      "  Why,    then,    do   you    neither   eat   nor 


244  CHARLES  OF  ORLEANS. 

drink?"  And  then  with  some  asperity,  as  I  imagine, 
the  young  duke  told  him  that  "  truly  he  had  no  in- 
clination for  food."  And  our  Henry  improved  the 
occasion  with  something  of  a  snuffle,  assuring  his 
prisoner  that  God  had  fought  against  the  French  on 
account  of  their  manifold  sins  and  transgressions. 
Upon  this  there  supervened  the  agonies  of  a  rough  sea 
passage  ;  and  many  French  lords,  Charles,  certainly, 
among  the  number,  declared  they  would  rather  endure 
such  another  defeat  than,  such  another  sore  trial  on 
shipboard.  Charles,  indeed,  never  forgot  his  suffer- 
ings. Long  afterward,  he  declared  his  hatred  to  a  sea- 
faring life,  and  willingly  yielded  to  England  the  em- 
pire of  the  seas,  "  because  there  is  danger  and  loss  of 
life,  and  God  knows  what  pity  when  it  storms  ;  and 
sea-sickness  is  for  many  people  hard  to  bear  ;  and  the 
rough  life  that  must  be  led  is  little  suitable  for  the  no- 
bility :"  '  which,  of  all  babyish  utterances  that  ever 
fell  from  any  public  man,  may  surely  bear  the  beU. 
Scarcely  disembarked,  he  followed  his  victor,  with  such 
wry  face  as  we  may  fancy,  through  the  streets  of  holi- 
day London.  And  then  the  doors  closed  upon  his 
last  day  of  garish  life  for  more  than  a  quarter  of  a  cen- 
tury. After  a  boyhood  passed  in  the  dissipations  of  a 
luxurious  court  or  in  the  camp  of  war,  his  ears  still 
stunned  and  his  cheeks  still  burning  from  his  enemies' 
jubilations  ;  out  of  all  this  ringing  of  English  bells  and 
singing  of  English  anthems,  from  among  all  these 
shouting  citizens  in  scarlet  cloaks,  and  beautiful  vir- 

1  Debate  bet-ween  the  Heralds. 


CHARLES  OF  ORLEANS.  245 

gins  attired  in  white,  he   passed  into  the  silence   and 
solitude  of  a  political  prison.' 

His  captivity  was  not  without  alleviations.  He  was 
allowed  to  go  hawking,  and  he  found  England  an  ad- 
mirable country  for  the  sport  ;  he  was  a  favorite  with 
English  ladies,  and  admired  their  beauty  ;  and  he  did 
not  lack  for  money,  wine,  or  books  ;  he  was  honorably 
imprisoned  in  the  strongholds  of  great  nobles,  in  Wind- 
sor Castle  and  the  Tower  of  London.  But  when  all 
is  said,  he  was  a  prisoner  for  five-and-twenty  years. 
For  five-and-twenty  years  he  could  not  go  where  he 
would,  or  do  what  he  liked,  or  speak  with  any  but  his 
jailers.  We  may  talk  very  wisely  of  alleviations  ;  there 
is  only  one  alleviation  for  which  the  man  would  thank 
you  :  he  would  thank  you  to  open  the  door.  With 
what  regret  Scottish  James  I.  bethought  him  (in  the 
next  room  perhaps  to  Charles)  of  the  time  when  he 
rose  "  as  early  as  the  day.  "  What  would  he  not  have 
given  to  wet  his  boots  once  more  with  morning  dew, 
and  follow  his  vagrant  fancy  among  the  meadows  ? 
The  only  alleviation  to  the  misery  of  constraint  lies  in 
the  disposition  of  the  prisoner.  To  each  one  this 
place  of  discipline  brings  his  own  lesson.  It  stirs 
Latude  or  Baron  Trenck  into  heroic  action  ;  it  is  a 
hermitage  for  pious  and  conformable  spirits.  Beranger 
tells  us  he  found  prison  life,  with  its  regular  hours 
and  long  evenings,  both  pleasant  and  profitable.  The 
Pilgrim  s  Progress  and  Don  Quixote  were  begun  in 
prison.      It  was  after  they  were  become  (to  use  the 

'  Sir  H.  Nicholas,  Aghicourt. 


246  CHARLES  OF  ORLEANS. 

words  of  one  of  them),  "Oh,  worst  imprisonment — 
the  dungeon  of  themselves  !"  that  Homer  and  INIilton 
worked  so  hard  and  so  well  for  the  profit  of  mankind. 
In  the  year  14 15  Henry  V.  had  two  distinguished 
prisoners,  French  Charles  of  Orleans  and  Scottish 
James  I.,  who  whiled  away  the  hours  of  their  captivity 
with  rhyming.  Indeed,  there  can  be  no  better  pas- 
time for  a  lonely  man  than  the  mechanical  exercise  of 
verse.  Such  intricate  forms  as  Charles  had  been  used 
to  from  childhood,  the  ballade  with  its  scanty  rhymes  ; 
the  rondel,  with  the  recurrence  first  of  the  whole,  then 
of  half  the  burden,  in  thirteen  verses,  seem  to  have 
been  invented  for  the  prison  and  the  sick-bed.  The 
common  Scotch  saying,  on  the  sight  of  anything 
operose  and  finical,  "he  must  have  had  little  to  do 
that  made  that  !"  might  be  put  as  epigraph  on  all  the 
song  books  of  old  France.  Making  such  sorts  of 
verse  belongs  to  the  same  class  of  pleasures  as  guess- 
ing acrostics  or  "burying  proverbs."  It  is  almost 
purely  formal,  almost  purely  verbal.  It  must  be  done 
gently  and  gingerly.  It  keeps  the  mind  occupied  a 
long  time,  and  never  so  intently  as  to  be  distressing  ; 
for  anything  like  strain  is  against  the  very  nature  of 
the  craft.  Sometimes  things  go  easily,  the  refrains 
fall  into  their  place  as  if  of  their  own  accord,  and  it 
becomes  something  of  the  nature  of  an  intellectual 
tennis  ;  you  must  make  your  poem  as  the  rhymes  will 
go,  just  as  you  must  strike  your  ball  as  your  adver- 
sary played  it.  So  that  these  forms  are  suitable  rather 
for  those  who  wish  to  make  verses,  than  for  those  who 


CHARLES   OF  ORLEANS.  247 

wish  to  express  opinions.  Sometimes,  on  the  other 
hand,  difficulties  arise  :  rival  verses  come  into  a  man's 
head,  and  fugitive  words  elude  his  memory.  Then  it 
is  that  he  enjoys  at  the  same  time  the  deliberate  pleas- 
ures of  a  connoisseur  comparing  wines,  and  the  ardor 
of  the  chase.  He  may  have  been  sitting  all  day  long 
in  prison  with  folded  hands  ;  but  when  he  goes  to 
bed,  the  retrospect  will  seem  animated  and  eventful. 

Besides  confirming  himself  as  an  habitual  maker  of 
verses,  Charles  acquired  some  new  opinions  during  his 
captivity.  He  was  perpetually  reminded  of  the  change 
that  had  befallen  him.  He  found  the  climate  of  Eng- 
land cold  and  "  prejudicial  to  the  human  frame  ;" 
he  had  a  great  contempt  for  English  fruit  and  English 
beer  ;  even  the  coal  fires  were  unpleasing  in  his  eyes. ' 
He  was  rooted  up  from  among  his  friends  and  cus- 
toms and  the  places  that  had  known  him.  And  so  in 
this  strange  land  he  began  to  learn  the  love  of  his 
own.  Sad  people  all  the  world  over  are  like  to  be 
moved  when  the  wind  is  in  some  particular  quarter. 
So  Burns  preferred  when  it  was  in  the  west,  and  blew 
to  him  from  his  mistress  ;  so  the  girl  in  the  ballade, 
looking  south  to  Yarrow,  thought  it  might  carry  a  kiss 
betwixt  her  and  her  gallant  ;  and  so  we  find  Charles 
singing  of  the  "  pleasant  wind  that  comes  from 
France."-  One  day,  at  "  Dover-on-the-Sea, "  he 
looked  across  the  straits,  and  saw  the  sandhills  about 
Calais.  And  it  happened  to  him,  he  tells  us  in  a  bal- 
lade, to  remember   his   happiness  over  there  in    the 

*  Debate  between  the  Heralds.  "^  Works  (ed.  d'Hericault),  i.  43. 


248  CHARLES   OF  ORLEANS. 

past  ;  and  he  was  both  sad  and  merry  at  the  recollec- 
tion, and  could  not  have  his  fill  of  gazing  on  the 
shores  of  France. '  Although  guilty  of  unpatriotic  acts, 
he  had  never  been  exactly  unpatriotic  in  feeling.  But 
his  sojourn  in  England  gave,  for  the  time  at  least, 
some  consistency  to  what  had  been  a  very  weak  and 
ineffectual  prejudice.  He  must  have  been  under  the 
influence  of  more  than  usually  solemn  considerations, 
when  he  proceeded  to  turn  Henry's  puritanical  homily 
after  Agincourt  into  a  ballade,  and  reproach  France, 
and  himself  by  implication,  with  pride,  gluttony,  idle- 
ness, unbridled  covetousness,  and  sensuality.-  For 
the  moment,  he  must  really  have  been  thinking  more 
of  France  than  of  Charles  of  Orleans. 

And  another  lesson  he  learned.  He  who  was  only 
to  be  released  in  case  of  peace,  begins  to  think  upon 
the  disadvantages  of  war.  "  Pray  for  peace,"  is  his 
refrain  :  a  strange  enough  subject  for  the  ally  of  Ber- 
nard d'Armagnac'  But  this  lesson  was  plain  and 
practical  ;  it  had  one  side  in  particular  that  was 
specially  attractive  for  Charles  ;  and  he  did  not  hesi- 
tate to  explain  it  in  so  many  words.  "  Ever}-body, " 
he  writes — I  translate  roughly — "  everybody  should 
be  much  inclined  to  peace,  for  everybody  has  a  deal 
to  gain  by  it."  * 

Charles  made  laudable  endeavors  to  acquire  Eng- 
lish, and  even  learned  to  write  a  rondel  in  that  tongue 


1  Works  (ed.  d'Hericault),  i.  143.  ^  /^/rf.  i^. 

2  Ibid.  igo.  «  Ibid.  158. 


CHARLES  OF  ORLEANS.  249 

of  quite  average  mediocrity. '  He  was  for  some  time 
billeted  on  the  unhappy  Suffolk,  who  received  four- 
teen shillings  and  fourpence  a  day  for  his  expenses  ; 
and  from  the  fact  that  Suffolk  afterward  visited  Charles 
in  France  while  he  was  negotiating  the  marriage  of 
Henry  Vf.,  as  well  as  the  terms  of  that  nobleman's 
impeachment,  we  may  believe  there  was  some  not  un- 
kindly intercourse  between  the  prisoner  and  his  jailer  : 
a  fact  of  considerable  interest  when  we  remember  that 
Suffolk's  wife  was  the  granddaughter  of  the  poet 
Geoffrey  Chaucer.^  Apart  from  this,  and  a  mere 
catalogue  of  dates  and  places,  only  one  thing  seems 
evident  in  the  story  of  Charles's  captivity.  It  seems 
evident  that,  as  these  five  and- twenty  years  drew  on, 
he  became  less  and  less  resigned.  Circumstances  were 
against  the  growth  of  such  a  feeling.  One  after  an- 
other of  his  fellow-prisoners  was  ransomed  and  went 
home.  More  than  once  he  was  himself  permitted  to 
visit  France  ;  where  he  worked  on  abortive  treaties  and 
showed  himself  more  eager  for  his  own  deliverance 
than  for  the  profit  of  his  native  land.  Resignation 
may  follow  after  a  reasonable  time  upon  despair  ;  but 
if  a  man  is  persecuted  by  a  series  of  brief  and  irritat- 
ing hopes,  his  mind  no  more  attains  to  a  settled  frame 
of  resolution,  than  his  eye  would  grow  familiar  with  a 
night  of  thunder  and  lightning.     Years  after,  when  he 


1  M.  Champollion-Figeac  gives  many  in  his  editions  of  Charles's  works, 
most  (as  J  should  think)  of  very  doubtful  authenticity,  or  worse. 

2  Rymer,  x.  564.    D'Hericault's  Memoir^  p.  xli.    Gairdner's  Paston  Let- 
ters, i.  27,  99. 


250  CHARLES  OF  ORLEANS. 

was  speaking  at  the  trial  ol  that  Duke  of  Alengon,  who 
began  Hfe  so  hopefully  as  the  boyish  favorite  of  Joan 
of  Arc,  he  sought  to  prove  that  captivity  was  a  harder 
punishment  than  death.  "  For  I  have  had  experience 
myself,"  he  said  ;  "  and  in  my  prison  of  England, 
for  the  weariness,  danger,  and  displeasure  in  which  I 
then  lay,  I  have  many  a  time  wished  I  had  been  slain 
at  the  battle  where  they  took  me."  '  This  is  a  flour- 
ish, if  you  will,  but  it  is  something  more.  His  spirit 
would  sometimes  rise  up  in  a  fine  anger  against  the  petty 
desires  and  contrarieties  of  life.  He  would  compare 
his  own  condition  with  the  quiet  and  dignified  estate 
of  the  dead  ;  and  aspire  to  lie  among  his  comrades  on 
the  field  of  Agincourt,  as  the  Psalmist  prayed  to  have 
the  wings  of  a  dove  and  dwell  in  the  uttermost  parts 
of  the  sea.  But  such  high  thoughts  came  to  Charles 
only  in  a  flash. 

John  the  Fearless  had  been  murdered  in  his  turn 
on  the  bridge  of  Montereau  so  far  back  as  14 19.  His 
son,  Philip  the  Good — partly  to  extinguish  the  feud, 
partly  that  he  might  do  a  popular  action,  and  partly, 
in  view  of  his  ambitious  schemes,  to  detach  another 
great  vassal  from  the  throne  of  France — had  taken  up 
the  cause  of  Charles  of  Orleans,  and  negotiated  dili- 
gently for  his  release.  In  1433  a  Burgundian  embassy 
was  admitted  to  an  interview  with  the  captive  duke,  in 
the  presence  of  Suffolk.  Charles  shook  hands  most 
affectionately  with  the  ambassadors.  They  asked  after 
his  health.      "  I  am  well  enough  in  body,"  he  replied, 

'  Champollion-Figeac,  377. 


CHARLES   OF  ORLEANS.  251 

"  but  far  from  well  in  mind.  I  am  dying  of  grief  at 
having  to  pass  the  best  days  of  my  life  in  prison,  with 
none  to  sympathize. "  The  talk  falling  on  the  chances 
of  peace,  Charles  referred  to  Suffolk  if  he  were  not 
sincere  and  constant  in  his  endeavors  to  bring  it 
about.  "If  peace  depended  on  me,"  he  said,  "I 
should  procure  it  gladly,  were  it  to  cost  me  my  life 
seven  days  after."  We  may  take  this  as  showing 
what  a  large  price  he  set,  not  so  much  on  peace,  as 
on  seven  days  of  freedom.  Seven  days  !  — he  would 
make  them  seven  years  in  the  employment.  Finally, 
he  assured  the  ambassadors  of  his  good  will  to  Philip 
of  Burgundy  ;  squeezed  one  of  them  by  the  hand  and 
nipped  him  twice  in  the  arm  to  signify  things  unspeak- 
able before  Suffolk  ;  and  two  days  after  sent  them 
Suffolk's  barber,  one  Jean  Carnet,  a  native  of  Lille, 
to  testify  more  freely  of  his  sentiments.  "  As  I  speak 
French,"  said  this  emissary,  "  the  Duke  of  Orleans 
is  more  familiar  with  me  than  with  any  other  of  the 
household  ;  and  I  can  bear  witness  he  never  said  any- 
thing against  Duke  Philip."  '  It  will  be  remembered 
that  this  person,  with  whom  he  was  so  anxious  to 
stand  well,  was  no  other  than  his  hereditary  enemy, 
the  son  of  his  father's  murderer.  But  the  honest  fel- 
low bore  no  malice,  indeed  not  he.  He  began  ex- 
changing ballades  with  Philip,  whom  he  apostrophizes 
as  his  companion,  his  cousin,  and  his  brother.  He 
assures  him  that,  soul  and  body,  he  is  altogether  Bur- 
gundian  ;  and  protests  that  he  has  given  his  heart  in 

1  Dom  Plancher,  iv.  178-9. 


252  CHARLES   OF  ORLEANS. 

pledge  to  him.  Regarded  as  the  history  of  a  vendetta, 
it  must  be  owned  that  Charles's  life  has  points  of  some 
originality.  And  yet  there  is  an  engaging  frankness 
about  these  ballades  which  disarms  criticism.'  You 
see  Charles  throwing  himself  headforemost  into  the 
trap  ;  you  hear  Burgundy,  in  his  answers,  begin  to 
inspire  him  with  his  own  prejudices,  and  draw  melan- 
choly pictures  of  the  misgovernment  of  France.  But 
Charles's  own  spirits  are  so  high  and  so  amiable,  and 
he  is  so  thoroughly  convinced  his  cousin  is  a  fine  fel- 
low, that  one's  scruples  are  carried  away  in  the  torrent 
of  his  happiness  and  gratitude.  And  his  would  be  a 
sordid  spirit  who  would  not  clap  hands  at  the  consum- 
mation (Nov.  1440)  ;  when  Charles,  after  having  sworn 
on  the  Sacrament  that  he  would  never  again  bear  arms 
against  England,  and  pledged  himself  body  and  soul  to 
the  unpatriotic  faction  in  his  own  country,  set  out  from 
London  with  a  light  heart  and  a  damaged  integrity. 

In  the  magnificent  copy  of  Charles's  poems,  given 
by  our  Henry  VII.  to  Elizabeth  of  York  on  the  occa- 
sion of  their  marriage,  a  large  illumination  figures  at 
the  head  of  one  of  the  pages,  which,  in  chronological 
perspective,  is  almost  a  history  of  his  imprisonment. 
It  gives  a  view  of  London  with  all  its  spires,  the  river 
passing  through  the  old  bridge  and  busy  with  boats. 
One  side  of  the  White  Tower  has  been  taken  out,  and 
we  can  see,  as  under  a  sort  of  shrine,  the  paved  room 
where  the  duke  sits  writing.  He  occupies  a  high- 
backed  bench  in  front  of  a  great  chimney  ;  red  and 

'  Works,  i.  157-63. 


CHARLES  OF  ORLEANS.  253 

black  ink  are  before  him  ;  and  the  upper  end  of  the 
apartment  is  guarded  by  many  halberdiers,  with  the 
red  cross  of  England  on  their  breast.  On  the  next 
side  of  the  tower  he  appears  again,  leaning  out  of  win- 
dow and  gazing  on  the  river  ;  doubtless  there  blows 
just  then  "  a  pleasant  wind  from  out  the  land  of 
France,"  and  some  ship  comes  up  the  river:  "the 
ship  of  good  news."  At  the  door  we  find  him  yet 
again  ;  this  time  embracing  a  messenger,  while  a 
groom  stands  by  holding  two  saddled  horses.  And 
yet  further  to  the  left,  a  cavalcade  defiles  out  of  the 
tower;  the  duke  is  on  his  way  at  last  toward  "  the 
sunshine  of  France. ' ' 

III. 

During  the  five  and -twenty  years  of  his  captivity, 
Charles  had  not  lost  in  the  esteem  of  his  fellow-coun- 
trymen. For  so  young  a  man,  the  head  of  so  great  a 
house,  and  so  numerous  a  party,  to  be  taken  prisoner 
as  he  rode  in  the  vanguard  of  France,  and  stereotyped 
for  all  men  in  this  heroic  attitude,  was  to  taste  untime- 
ously  the  honors  of  the  grave.  Of  him,  as  of  the 
dead,  it  would  be  ungenerous  to  speak  evil  ;  what 
little  energy  he  had  displayed  would  be  remembered 
with  piety,  when  all  that  he  had  done  amiss  was  cour- 
teously forgotten.  As  English  folk  looked  for  Arthur  ; 
as  Danes  awaited  the  coming  of  Ogier  ;  as  Somerset- 
shire peasants  or  sergeants  of  the  Old  Guard  expected 
the  return  of  Monmouth  or  Napoleon  ;  the  country- 
men  of   Charles   of   Orleans   looked  over  the  straits 


254  CHARLES   OF  ORLEANS. 

toward  his  English  prison  with  desire  and  confidence. 
Events  had  so  fallen  out  while  he  was  rhyming  bal- 
lades, that  he  had  become  the  type  of  all  that  was 
most  truly  patriotic.  The  remnants  of  his  old  party 
had  been  the  chief  defenders  of  the  unity  of  France. 
His  enemies  of  Burgundy  had  been  notoriously  fa- 
vorers and  furtherers  of  English  domination.  People 
forgot  that  his  brother  still  lay  by  the  heels  for  an  un- 
patriotic treaty  with  England,  because  Charles  himself 
had  been  taken  prisoner  patriotically  fighting  against 
it.  That  Henry  V.  had  left  special  orders  against  his 
liberation,  served  to  increase  the  wistful  pity  with 
which  he  was  regarded.  And  when,  in  defiance  of 
all  contemporary  virtue,  and  against  express  pledges, 
the  English  carried  war  into  their  prisoner's  fief,  not 
only  France,  but  all  thinking  men  in  Christendom, 
were  roused  to  indignation  against  the  oppressors, 
and  sympathy  with  the  victim.  It  was  little  wonder 
if  he  came  to  bulk  somewhat  largely  in  the  imagina- 
tion of  the  best  of  those  at  home.  Charles  le  Bout- 
teillier,  when  (as  the  story  goes)  he  slew  Clarence  at 
Beauge,  was  only  seeking  an  exchange  for  Charles  of 
Orleans. '  It  was  one  of  Joan  of  Arc's  declared  in- 
tentions to  deliver  the  captive  duke.  If  there  was  no 
other  way,  she  meant  to  cross  the  seas  and  bring  him 
home  by  force.  And  she  professed  before  her  judges 
a  sure  knowledge  that  Charles  of  Orleans  was  beloved 
«f  God.^ 

Alas  !  it  was  not  at  all  as  a  deliverer  that  Charles 

*  Vallet's  Charles  VII.,  i.  251.         *  Proces  de  Jeanne  (fArc,  i.  133-55. 


CHARLES  OF  ORLEANS.  255 

returned  to  France.  He  was  nearly  fifty  years  old. 
Many  changes  had  been  accomplished  since,  at  twenty- 
three,  he  was  taken  on  the  field  of  Agincourt.  But 
of  all  these  he  was  profoundly  ignorant,  or  had  only 
heard  of  them  in  the  discolored  reports  of  Philip  of 
Burgundy.  He  had  the  ideas  of  a  former  generation, 
and  sought  to  correct  them  by  the  scandal  of  a  fac- 
tious party.  With  such  qualifications  he  came  back 
eager  for  the  domination,  the  pleasures,  and  the  dis- 
play that  befitted  his  princely  birth.  A  long  disuse 
of  all  political  activity  combined  with  the  flatteries  of 
his  new  friends  to  fill  him  with  an  overweening  con- 
ceit of  his  own  capacity  and  influence.  If  aught  had 
gone  wrong  in  his  absence,  it  seemed  quite  natural 
men  should  look  to  him  for  its  redress.  Was  not 
King  Arthur  come  again  .? 

The  Duke  of  Burgundy  received  him  with  politic 
honors.  He  took  his  guest  by  his  foible  for  pageant- 
ry, all  the  easier  as  it  was  a  foible  of  his  own  ;  and 
Charles  walked  right  out  of  prison  into  much  the 
same  atmosphere  of  trumpeting  and  bell-ringing  as  he 
had  left  behind  when  he  went  in.  Fifteen  days  after 
his  deliverance  he  was  married  to  ]Mary  of  Cleves, 
at  St.  Omer.  The  marriage  was  celebrated  with  the 
usual  pomp  of  the  Burgundian  court  ;  there  were 
joustings,  and  illuminations,  and  animals  that  spouted 
wine  ;  and  many  nobles  dined  together,  conwie  en 
brigade,  and  were  served  abundantly  with  many  rich 
and  curious  dishes. '     It  must  have  reminded  Charles 

1  Monstrelet. 


256  CHARLES  OF  ORLEANS. 

not  a  little  of  his  first  marriage  at  Compiegne  ;  ohly 
then  he  was  two  years  the  junior  of  his  bride,  and  this 
time  he  was  five-and-thirty  years  her  senior.  It  will 
be  a  fine  question  which  marriage  promises  more  :  for 
a  boy  of  fifteen  to  lead  off  with  a  lass  of  seventeen,  or 
a  man  of  fifty  to  make  a  match  of  it  with  a  child  of 
fifteen.  But  there  was  something  bitter  in  both. 
The  lamentations  of  Isabella  will  not  have  been  for- 
gotten. As  for  Mary,  she  took  up  with  one  Jaquet 
de  la  Lain,  a  sort  of  muscular  Methody  of  the  period, 
with  a  huge  appetite  for  tournaments,  and  a  habit  of 
confessing  himself  the  last  thing  before  he  went  to 
bed.'  With  such  a  hero,  the  young  duchess's  amours 
were  most  likely  innocent ;  and  in  all  other  ways  she 
was  a  suitable  partner  for  the  duke,  and  well  fitted  to 
enter  into  his  pleasures. 

When  the  festivities  at  St.  Omer  had  come  to  an 
end,  Charles  and  his  wife  set  forth  by  Ghent  and 
Tournay.  The  towns  gave  him  offerings  of  money 
as  he  passed  through,  to  help  in  the  payment  of  his 
ransom.  From  all  sides,  ladies  and  gentlemen 
thronged  to  offer  him  their  services  ;  some  gave  him 
their  sons  for  pages,  some  archers  for  a  bodyguard  ; 
and  by  the  time  he  reached  Tournay,  he  had  a  follow- 
ing of  300  horse.  Everywhere  he  was  received  as 
though  he  had  been  the  King  of  France.  "^  If  he  did 
not  come  to  imagine  himself  something  of  the  sort, 


'  Vallet's  Charles  VII. ^  iii.  chap.  i.     But   see  the  chronicle  that  bears 
Jaqtiel's  name  :  a  lean  and  dreary  book. 
*  Monstrelet. 


CHARLES  OF  ORLEANS.  257 

he  certainly  forgot  the  existence  of  any  one  with  a 
better  claim  to  the  title.  He  conducted  himself  on 
the  hypothesis  that  Charles  VII.  was  another  Charles 
VI.  He  signed  with  enthusiasm  that  treaty  of  Arras, 
which  left  France  almost  at  the  discretion  of  Bur- 
gundy. On  December  18  he  was  still  no  farther  than 
Bruges,  where  he  entered  into  a  private  treaty  with 
Philip  ;  and  it  was  not  until  January  14,  ten  weeks 
after  he  disembarked  in  France,  and  attended  by  a 
ruck  of  Burgundian  gentlemen,  that  he  arrived  in 
Paris  and  offered  to  present  himself  before  Charles  VII. 
The  king  sent  word  that  he  might  come,  if  he  would, 
with  a  small  retinue,  but  not  with  his  present  follow- 
ing ;  and  the  duke,  who  was  mightily  on  his  high 
horse  after  all  the  ovations  he  had  received,  took  the 
king's  attitude  amiss,  and  turned  aside  into  Touraine, 
to  receive  more  welcome  and  more  presents,  and  be 
convoyed  by  torchlight  into  faithful  cities. 

And  so  you  see,  here  was  King  Arthur  home  again, 
and  matters  nowise  mended  in  consequence.  The 
best  we  can  say  is,  that  this  last  stage  of  Charles's 
public  life  was  of  no  long  duration.  His  confidence 
was  soon  knocked  out  of  him  in  the  contact  with 
others.  He  began  to  find  he  was  an  earthen  vessel 
among  many  vessels  of  brass  ;  he  began  to  be  shrewdly 
aware  that  he  was  no  King  Arthur.  In  1442,  at 
Limoges,  he  made  himself  the  spokesman  of  the  mal- 
content nobility.  The  king  showed  himself  humiliat- 
ingly  indifferent  to  his  counsels,  and  humiliatingly 
generous    toward    his    necessities.     And    there,    with 


258  CHARLES  OF  ORLEANS. 

some  blushes,  he  may  be  said  to  have  taken  farewell 
of  the  political  stage.  A  feeble  attempt  on  the  county 
of  Asti  is  scarce  worth  the  name  of  exception.  Thence- 
forward let  Ambition  wile  whom  she  may  into  the 
turmoil  of  events,  our  duke  will  walk  cannily  in  his 
well-ordered  garden,  or  sit  by  the  fire  to  touch  the 
slender  reed.' 

IV. 

If  it  were  given  each  of  us  to  transplant  his  life 
wherever  he  pleased  in  time  or  space,  with  all  the  ages 
and  all  the  countries  of  the  world  to  choose  from, 
there  would  be  quite  an  instructive  diversity  of  taste. 
A  certain  sedentary  majority  w^ould  prefer  to  remain 
where  they  were.  Many  would  choose  the  Renais- 
sance ;  many  some  stately  and  simple  period  of  Gre- 
cian life  ;  and  still  more  elect  to  pass  a  few  years  wan- 
dering among  the  villages  of  Palestine  with  an  mspired 
conductor.  For  some  of  our  quaintly  vicious  con- 
temporaries, we  have  the  decline  of  the  Roman  Em- 
pire and  the  reign  of  Henry  III.  of  France.  But 
there  are  others  not  quite  so  vicious,  who  yet  cannot 
look  upon  the  world  with  perfect  gravity,  who  have 
never  taken  the  categorical  imperative  to  wife,  and 
have  more  taste  for  what  is  comfortable  than  for  what 
is  magnanimous  and  high  ;  and  I  can  imagine  some 
of  these  casting  their  lot  in  the  Court  of  Blois  during 
the  last  twenty  years  of  the  life  of  Charles  of  Orleans. 

1  D'Hericault's  Memoir^  xl.  xli.     Vallet,  Charles  V/.,  ii.  435. 


CHARLES   OF  ORLEANS.  259 

The  duke  and  duchess,  their  staff  of  officers  and 
ladies,  and  the  high-born  and  learned  persons  who 
were  attracted  to  Blois  on  a  visit,  formed  a  society  for 
kilHng  time  and  perfecting  each  other  in  various  ele- 
gant accomplishments,  such  as  we  might  imagine  lor 
an  ideal  watering-place  in  the  Delectable  Mountains- 
The  company  hunted  and  went  on  pleasure- parties  ; 
they  played  chess,  tables,  and  many  other  games. 
What  we  now  call  the  history  of  the  period  passed,  I 
imagine,  over  the  heads  of  these  good  people  much 
as  It  passes  over  our  own.  News  reached  them,  in- 
deed, of  great  and  joyful  import.  William  Peel  re- 
ceived eight  livres  and  five  sous  from  the  duchess, 
when  he  brought  the  first  tidings  that  Rouen  was  re- 
captured from  the  English. '  A  little  later  and  the 
duke  sang,  in  a  truly  patriotic  vein,  the  deliverance  of 
Guyenne  and  Normandy."  They  were  liberal  of 
rhymes  and  largesse,  and  welcomed  the  prosperity  of 
their  country  much  as  they  welcomed  the  coming  of 
spring,  and  with  no  more  thought  of  collaborating 
toward  the  event.  Religion  was  not  forgotten  in  the 
Court  of  Blois.  Pilgrimages  were  agreeable  and  pic- 
turesque excursions.  In  those  days  a  well-served 
chapel  was  something  like  a  good  vinery  in  our  own, 
an  opportunity  for  display  and  the  source  of  mild  en- 
joyments. There  was  probably  something  of  his  rooted 
delight  in  pageantry,  as  well  as  a  good  deal  of  gentle 
piety,  in  the  feelings  with  which  Charles  give  dinner 
every  Friday  to   thirteen   poor  people,    served  them 

1  Ch..mpollion-Figeac,  368.  ^  Works,  i.  115. 


2&0  CHARLES   OF  ORLEANS. 

himself,  and  washed  their  feet  with  his  own  hands.* 
Solemn  affairs  would  interest  Charles  and  his  courtiers 
from  their  trivial  side.  The  duke  perhaps  cared  less 
for  the  deliverance  of  Guyenne  and  Normandy  than 
for  his  own  verses  on  the  occasion  ;  just  as  Dr.  Rus- 
sell's correspondence  in  The  Times  was  among  the 
most  material  parts  of  the  Crimean  War  for  that  tal- 
ented correspondent.  And  I  think  it  scarcely  cynical 
to  suppose  that  religion  as  well  as  patriotism  was 
principally  cultivated  as  a  means  of  filling  up  the  day. 
It  was  not  only  messengers  fiery  red  with  haste  and 
charged  with  the  destiny  of  nations,  who  were  made 
welcome  at  the  gates  of  Blois.  If  any  man  of  accom- 
plishment came  that  way,  he  was  sure  of  an  audience, 
and  something  for  his  pocket.  The  courtiers  would 
have  received  Ben  Jonson  like  Drummond  of  Haw- 
thornden,  and  a  good  pugilist  like  Captain  Barclay. 
They  were  catholic,  as  none  but  the  entirely  idle  can 
be  catholic.  It  might  be  Pierre,  called  Dieu  d'amours, 
the  juggler  ;  or  it  might  be  three  high  English  min- 
strels ;  or  the  two  men,  players  of  ghitterns,  from  the 
kingdom  of  Scotland,  who  sang  the  destruction  of  the 
Turks  ;  or  again  Jehan  Rognelet,  player  of  instru- 
ments of  music,  who  played  and  danced  with  his  wife 
and  two  children  ;  they  would  each  be  called  into  the 
castle  to  give  a  taste  of  his  proficiency  before  my  lord 
the  duke.'^  Sometimes  the  performance  was  of  a  more 
personal  interest,  and  produced  much  the  same  sensa- 

1  D'Hericault's  Memoir^  xlv. 

*  Champollion-Figeac,  3S1,  361,  3S1. 


CHARLES  OF  ORLEANS.  261 

tions  as  are  felt  on  an  English  green  on  the  arrival  of 
a  professional  cricketer,  or  round  an  English  billiard 
table  during  a  match  between  Roberts  and  Cooke. 
This  was  when  Jehan  Ncgre,  the  Lombard,  came  to 
Blois  and  played  chess  against  all  these  chess-players, 
and  won  much  money  from  my  lord  and  his  intimates  ; 
or  when  Baudet  Harenc  of  Chalons  made  ballades  be- 
fore all  these  ballade-makers.' 

It  will  not  surprise  the  reader  to  learn  they  were  all 
makers  of  ballades  and  rondels.  To  write  verses  for 
May  day,  seems  to  have  been  as  much  a  matter  of 
course,  as  to  ride  out  with  the  cavalcade  that  went  to 
gather  hawthorn.  The  choice  of  Valentines  was  a 
standing  challenge,  and  the  courtiers  pelted  each  other 
with  humorous  and  sentimental  verses  as  in  a  literary 
carnival.  If  an  indecorous  adventure  befell  our  friend 
Maistre  Estienne  le  Gout,  my  lord  the  duke  would 
turn  it  into  the  funniest  of  rondels,  all  the  rhymes  be- 
ing the  names  of  the  cases  of  nouns  or  the  moods  of 
verbs  ;  and  Maistre  Estienne  would  make  reply  in 
similar  fashion,  seeking  to  prune  the  story  of  its  more 
humiliating  episodes.  If  Fredet  was  too  long  away 
from  Court,  a  rondel  went  to  upbraid  him  ;  and  it 
was  in  a  rondel  that  Fredet  would  excuse  himself. 
Sometimes  two  or  three,  or  as  many  as  a  dozen,  would 
set  to  work  on  the  same  refrain,  the  same  idea,  or  in 
the  same  macaronic  jargon.  Some  of  the  poetasters 
were  heavy  enough  ;  others  were  not  wanting  in  ad- 
dress ;  and  the  duchess  herself  was  among  those  who 

1  ChampoIIion-Figeac,  359,  361. 


202  CHARLES  OF  ORLEANS. 

most  excelled.  On  one  occasion  eleven  competitors 
made  a  ballade  on  the  idea, 

"  I  die  of  thirst  beside  the  fountain's  edge" 
(Je  meurs  de  soif  empres  de  la  fontaine). 

These  eleven  ballades  still  exist ;  and  one  of  them 
arrests  the  attention  rather  from  the  name  of  the  author 
than  from  any  special  merit  in  itself.  It  purports  to 
be  the  work  of  Franfois  Villon  ;  and  so  far  as  a 
foreigner  can  judge  (which  is  indeed  a  small  way),  it 
may  very  well  be  his.  Nay,  and  if  any  one  thing  is 
more  probable  than  another,  in  the  great  tabula  rasa, 
or  unknown  land,  which  we  are  fain  to  call  the  biog- 
raphy of  Villon,  it  seems  probable  enough  that  he 
may  have  gone  upon  a  visit  to  Charles  of  Orleans. 
Where  Master  Baudet  Harenc,  of  Chalons,  found  a 
sympathetic,  or  perhaps  a  derisive  audience  (for  who 
can  tell  nowadays  the  degree  of  Baudet's  excellence 
in  his  art  ?),  favor  would  not  be  wanting  for  the  great- 
est ballade-maker  of  all  time.  Great  as  would  seem 
the  incongruity,  it  may  have  pleased  Charles  to  own 
a  sort  of  kinship  with  ragged  singers,  and  whimsically 
regard  himself  as  one  of  the  confraternity  of  poets. 
And  he  would  have  other  grounds  of  intimacy  with 
Villon.  A  room  looking  upon  Windsor  gardens  is  a 
different  matter  from  Villon's  dungeon  at  Meun  ;  yet 
each  in  his  own  degree  had  been  tried  in  prison. 
Each  in  his  own  way  also,  loved  the  good  things  of 
this  life  and  the  service  of  the  Muses.  But  the  same 
gulf  that  separated  Burns  from  his  Edinburgh  patrons 


CHARLES  OF  ORLEANS.  263 

would  separate  the  singer  of  Bohemia  from  the  rhym- 
ing duke.  And  it  is  hard  to  imagine  that  Villon's 
training  among  thieves,  loose  women,  and  vagabond 
students,  had  fitted  him  to  move  in  a  society  of  any 
dignity  and  courtliness.  Ballades  are  very  admirable 
things  ;  and  a  poet  is  doubtless  a  most  interesting 
visitor.  But  among  the  courtiers  of  Charles,  there 
would  be  considerable  regard  for  the  proprieties  of  eti- 
quette ;  and  even  a  duke  will  sometimes  have  an  eye 
to  his  teaspoons.  Moreover,  as  a  poet,  I  can  conceive 
he  may  have  disappointed  expectation.  It  need  sur- 
prise nobody  if  Villon's  ballade  on  the  theme, 

"  I  die  of  thirst  beside  the  fountain's  edge," 

was  but  a  poor  performance.  He  would  make  better 
verses  on  the  lee-side  of  a  flagon  at  the  sign  of  the 
Pomme  du  Pin,  than  in  a  cushioned  settle  in  the  halls 
of  Blois. 

Charles  liked  change  of  place.  He  was  often,  not 
so  much  travelling  as  making  a  progress  ;  now  to  join 
the  king  for  some  great  tournament  ;  now  to  visit 
King  Rene,  at  Tarascon,  where  he  had  a  study  of  his 
own  and  saw  all  manner  of  interesting  things — oriental 
curios.  King  Rene  painting  birds,  and,  what  particu- 
larly pleased  him,  Triboulet,  the  dwarf  jester,  whose 
skull-cap  was  no  bigger  than  an  orange.  *  Sometimes 
the  journeys  were  set  about  on  horseback  in  a  large 
party,  with  the  fourriers  sent  forward  to  prepare  a 
lodging  at  the  next  stage.     We  find  almost  Gargantuan 

1  Lecoy  de  la  Marche,  Roi  Ren^,  ii.  155,  177. 


264  CHARLES  OF  ORLEANS. 

details  of  the  provision  made  by  these  officers  against 
the  duke's  arrival,  of  eggs  and  butter  and  bread, 
cheese  and  peas  and  chickens,  pike  and  bream  and 
barbel,  and  wine  both  white  and  red. '  Sometimes  he 
went  by  water  in  a  barge,  playing  chess  or  tables  with 
a  friend  in  the  pavilion,  or  watching  other  vessels  as 
they  went  before  the  wind.  ^  Children  ran  along  the 
bank,  as  they  do  to  this  day  on  the  Crinan  Canal  ; 
and  when  Charles  threw  in  money,  they  would  dive 
and  bring  it  up.'  As  he  looked  on  at  their  exploits, 
I  wonder  whether  that  room  of  gold  and  silk  and 
worsted  came  back  into  his  memory,  v/ith  the  device 
of  little  children  in  a  river,  and  the  sky  full  of  birds .'' 

He  was  a  bit  of  a  book-fancier,  and  had  vied  with 
his  brother  Angouleme  in  bringing  back  the  library  of 
their  grandfather  Charles  V.,  when  Bedford  put  it  up 
for  sale  in  London."  The  duchess  had  a  library  of 
her  own  ;  and  we  hear  of  her  borrowing  romances 
from  ladies  in  attendance  on  the  blue- stocking  Marga- 
ret of  Scotland.^  Not  only  were  books  collected,  but 
new  books  were  written  at  the  Court  of  Blois.  The 
widow  of  one  Jean  Fougere,  a  bookbinder,  seems  to 
have  done  a  number  of  odd  commissions  for  the 
bibliophilous  count.     She  it  was  who  received  three 

1  ChampolHon-Figeac,  chaps,  v.  and  vi. 
^  Ibid.  364  ;  Works,  i.  172. 

*  ChampoUion-Figeac,  364 :  "  Jeter  de  I'argent  aux  petis  enfans  qui 
estoient  au  long  de  Bourbon,  pour  les  faire  nonner  en  I'eau  et  aller  querre 
I'argent  au  fond." 

*  ChampoUion-Figeac,  3S7. 

*  Nouvelle Biographic Diaot,  art.  "Marie  de  Cleves."  Vallet,  Charles 
VII. y  iii.  85,  note  i. 


^CHARLES  OF  ORLEANS.  265 

vellum-skins  to  bind  the  duchess's  Book  of  Hours, 
and  who  was  employed  to  prepare  parchment  for  the 
use  of  the  duke's  scribes.  And  she  it  was  who  bound 
in  vermilion  leather  the  great  manuscript  of  Charles's 
own  poems,  which  was  presented  to  him  by  his  secre- 
tary, Anthony  Astesan,  with  the  text  in  one  column, 
and  Astesan' s  Latin  version  in  the  other.  ^ 

Such  tastes,  with  the  coming  of  years,  would  doubt- 
less take  the  place  of  many  others.  We  find  in 
Charles's  verse  much  semi- ironical  regret  for  other 
days,  and  resignation  to  growing  infirmities.  He  who 
had  been  "nourished  in  the  schools  of  love,"  now 
sees  nothing  either  to  please  or  displease  him.  Old 
age  has  imprisoned  him  within  doors,  where  he  means 
to  take  his  ease,  and  let  younger  fellows  bestir  them- 
selves in  life.  He  had  written  (in  earlier  days,  we 
may  presume)  a  bright  and  defiant  little  poem  in  praise 
of  solitude.  If  they  would  but  leave  him  alone  with 
his  own  thoughts  and  happy  recollections,  he  declared 
it  was  beyond  the  power  of  melancholy  to  affect  him. 
But  now,  when  his  animal  strength  has  so  much  de- 
clined that  he  sings  the  discomforts  of  winter  instead 
of  the  inspirations  of  spring,  and  he  has  no  longer  any 
appetite  for  life,  he  confesses  he  is  wretched  when 
alone,  and,  to  keep  his  mind  from  grievous  thoughts, 
he  must  have  many  people  around  him,  laughing, 
talking,  and  singing.^ 

While  Charles  was  thus  falling  into  years,  the  order 
of  things,  of  which  he  was  the  outcome  and  ornament, 

1  Champollion-Figeac,  383,  384-386.  '^  Works,  ii.  57,  258. 


2  66  CHARLES  OF  ORLEANS. 

was  growing  old  along  with  him.  The  semi-royalty 
of  the  princes  of  the  blood  was  already  a  thing  of  the 
past ;  and  when  Charles  VII,  was  gathered  to  his 
fathers,  a  new  king  reigned  in  France,  who  seemed 
every  way  the  opposite  of  royal.  Louis  XI.  had  aims 
that  were  incomprehensible,  and  virtues  that  were  in- 
conceivable to  his  contemporaries.  But  his  contem- 
poraries were  able  enough  to  appreciate  his  sordid  ex- 
terior, and  his  cruel  and  treacherous  spirit.  To  the 
whole  nobility  of  France  he  was  a  fatal  and  unreason- 
able phenomenon.  All  such  courts  as  that  of  Charles 
at  Blois,  or  his  friend  Rene's  in  Provence,  would  soon 
be  made  impossible  ;  interference  was  the  order  of  the 
day  ;  hunting  was  already  abolished  ;  and  who  should 
say  what  was  to  go  next  ?  Louis,  in  fact,  must  have 
appeared  to  Charles  primarily  in  the  light  of  a  kill-joy. 
I  take  it,  when  missionaries  land  in  South  Sea  Islands 
and  lay  strange  embargo  on  the  simplest  things  in  life, 
the  islanders  will  not  be  much  more  puzzled  and  irri- 
tated than  Charles  of  Orleans  at  the  policy  of  the  Elev- 
enth Louis.  There  was  one  thing,  I  seem  to  appre- 
hend, that  had  always  particularly  moved  him  ;  and  that 
was,  any  proposal  to  punish  a  person  of  his  acquaint- 
ance. No  matter  what  treason  he  may  have  made  or 
meddled  with,  an  Alengon  or  an  Armagnac  was  sure 
to  find  Charles  reappear  from  private  life,  and  do  his 
best  to  get  him  pardoned.  He  knew  them  quite  well. 
He  had  made  rondels  with  them.  They  were  charming 
people  in  every  way.  There  must  certainly  be  some 
mistake.      Had  not  he  himself    made    anti-national 


CHARLES  OF  ORLEANS.  267 

treaties  almost  before  he  was  out  of  his  nonage  ?  And 
for  the  matter  of  that,  had  not  every  one  else  done  the 
like  ?  Such  are  some  of  the  thoughts  by  which  he 
might  explain  to  himself  his  aversion  to  such  extremi- 
ties ;  but  it  was  on  a  deeper  basis  that  the  feeling 
probably  reposed.  A  man  of  his  temper  could  not 
fail  to  be  impressed  at  the  thought  of  disastrous  revo- 
lutions in  the  fortunes  of  those  he  knew.  He  would 
feel  painfully  the  tragic  contrast,  when  those  v/ho  had 
everything  to  make  life  valuable  were  deprived  of  life 
itself.  And  it  was  shocking  to  the  clemency  of  his 
spirit,  that  sinners  should  be  hurried  before  their  Judge 
without  a  fitting  interval  for  penitence  and  satisfaction. 
It  was  this  feeling  which  brought  him  at  last,  a  poor, 
purblind  blue-bottle  of  the  later  autumn,  into  collision 
with  "  the  universal  spider,"  Louis  XI.  He  took  up 
the  defence  of  the  Duke  of  Brittany  at  Tours.  But 
Louis  was  then  in  no  humor  to  hear  Charles's  texts 
and  Latin  sentiments  ;  he  had  his  back  to  the  wall, 
the  future  of  France  was  at  stake  ;  and  if  all  the  old 
men  in  the  world  had  crossed  his  path,  they  would 
have  had  the  rough  side  of  his  tongue  like  Charles  of 
Orleans.  I  have  found  nowhere  what  he  said,  but  it 
seems  it  was  monstrously  to  the  point,  and  so  rudely 
conceived  that  the  old  duke  never  recovered  the  indig- 
nity. He  got  home  as  far  as  Amboise,  sickened,  and 
died  two  days  after  (Jan.  4,  1465),  in  the  seventy- 
fourth  year  of  his  age.  And  so  a  whiff  of  pungent 
prose  stopped  the  issue  of  melodious  rondels  to  the 
end  of  time. 


26S  CHARLES   OF  ORLEANS. 


V. 

The  futility  of  Charles's  public  life  was  of  a  piece 
throughout.  He  never  succeeded  in  any  single  pur- 
pose he  set  before  him  ;  for  his  deliverance  from  Eng- 
land, after  twenty- five  years  of  failure  and  at  the  cost 
of  dignity  and  consistency,  it  would  be  ridiculously 
hyperbolical  to  treat  as  a  success.  During  the  first 
part  of  his  life  he  was  the  stalking  horse  of  Bernard 
d'Armagnac  ;  during  the  second,  he  was  the  passive 
instrument  of  English  diplomatists  ;  and  before  he 
was  well  entered  on  the  third,  he  hastened  to  become 
the  dupe  and  catspaw  of  Burgundian  treason.  On 
each  of  these  occasions,  a  strong  and  not  dishonorable 
personal  motive  determined  his  behavior.  In  1407 
and  the  following  years,  he  had  his  father's  murder 
uppermost  in  his  mind.  During  his  English  captivity, 
that  thought  was  displaced  by  a  more  immediate  desire 
for  his  own  liberation.  In  1440  a  sentiment  of  grati- 
tude to  Philip  of  Burgundy  blinded  him  to  all  else,  and 
led  him  to  break  with  the  tradition  of  his  party  and  his 
own  former  life.  He  was  born  a  great  vassal,  and  he 
conducted  himself  like  a  private  gentleman.  He  be- 
gan life  in  a  showy  and  brilliant  enough  fashion,  by 
the  light  of  a  petty  personal  chivalry.  He  was  not 
without  some  tincture  of  patriotism  ;  but  it  was  resolv 
able  into  two  parts  :  a  preference  for  life  among  his 
fellow  countrymen,  and  a  barren  point  of  honor.  In 
England,  he  could  comfort  himself  by  the  reflection 


CHARLES   OF  ORLEANS.  269 

that  "  he  had  been  taken  while  loyally  doing  his  de- 
voir," without  any  misgiving  as  to  his  conduct  in  the 
previous  years,  when  he  had  prepared  the  disaster  of 
Agincourt  by  wasteful  feud.  This  unconsciousness  of 
the  larger  interests  is  perhaps  most  happily  exampled 
out  of  his  own  mouth.  When  Alengon  stood  accused 
of  betraying  Normandy  into  the  hands  of  the  English, 
Charles  made  a  speech  in  his  defence,  from  which  I 
have  already  quoted  more  than  once.  Alenyon,  he 
said,  had  professed  a  great  love  and  trust  toward  him  ; 
"yet  did  he  give  no  great  proof  thereof,  when  he 
sought  to  betray  Normandy  ;  whereby  he  would  have 
made  me  lose  an  estate  of  10,000  livres  a  year,  and 
might  have  occasioned  the  destruction  of  the  kingdom 
and  of  all  us  Frenchmen."  These  are  the  words  of 
one,  mark  you,  against  whom  Gloucester  warned  the 
English  Council  because  of  his  "great  subtility  and 
cautelous  disposition."  It  is  not  hard  to  excuse  the 
impatience  of  Louis  XL,  if  such  stuff  was  foisted  on 
him  by  way  of  political  deliberation. 

This  incapacity  to  see  things  with  any  greatness,  this 
obscure  and  narrow  view,  was  fundamentally  character- 
istic of  the  man  as  well  as  of  the  epoch.  It  is  not  even 
so  striking  in  his  public  life,  where  he  failed,  as  in  his 
poems,  where  he  notably  succeeded.  For  wherever 
we  might  expect  a  poet  to  be  unintelligent,  it  certainly 
would  not  be  in  his  poetry.  And  Charles  is  unintelli- 
gent even  there.  Of  all  authors  whom  a  modern  may 
still  read  and  read  over  again  with  pleasure,  he  has 
perhaps    the    least  to  say.      His  poems  seem  to  bear 


270  CHARLES  OF  ORLEANS. 

testimony  rather  to  the  fashion  of  rhyming,  which  dis- 
tinguished the  age,  than  to  any  special  vocation  in  the 
man  himself.  Some  of  them  are  drawing-room  exer- 
cises, and  the  rest  seem  made  by  habit.  Great  writers 
are  struck  with  something  in  nature  or  society,  with 
which  they  become  pregnant  and  longing  ;  they  are 
possessed  with  an  idea,  and  cannot  be  at  peace  until 
they  have  put  it  outside  of  them  in  some  distinct  em- 
bodiment. But  with  Charles  literature  was  an  object 
rather  than  a  mean  ;  he  was  one  who  loved  bandying 
words  for  its  own  sake  ;  the  rigidity  of  intricate  metri- 
cal forms  stood  him  in  lieu  of  precise  thought ;  instead 
of  communicating  truth,  he  observed  the  laws  of  a 
game  ;  and  when  he  had  no  one  to  challenge  at  chess 
or  rackets,  he  made  verses  in  a  wager  against  himself. 
From  the  very  idleness  of  the  man's  mind,  and  not 
from  intensity  of  feeling,  it  happens  that  all  his  poems 
are  more  or  less  autobiographical.  But  they  form  an 
autobiography  singularly  bald  and  uneventful.  Little 
is  therein  recorded  beside  sentiments.  Thoughts,  in 
any  true  sense,  he  had  none  to  record.  And  if  we 
can  gather  that  he  had  been  a  prisoner  in  England, 
that  he  had  lived  in  the  Orleannese,  and  that  he 
hunted  and  went  in  parties  of  pleasure,  I  believe  it  is 
about  as  much  definite  experience  as  is  to  be  found  in 
all  these  five  hundred  pages  of  autobiographical  verse. 
Doubtless,  we  find  here  and  there  a  complaint  on  the 
progress  of  the  infirmities  of  age.  Doubtless,  he  feels 
the  great  change  of  the  year,  and  distinguishes  winter 
from  spring  ;  winter  as  the  time  of  snow  and  the  fire- 


CHARLES  OF  ORLEANS.  271 

side  ;  spring  as  the  return  of  grass  and  flowers,  the 
time  of  St.  Valentine's  day  and  a  beating  heart.  And 
he  feels  love  after  a  fashion.  Again  and  again,  we 
learn  that  Charles  of  Orleans  is  in  love,  and  hear  him 
ring  the  changes  through  the  whole  gamut  of  dainty 
and  tender  sentiment.  But  there  is  never  a  spark  of 
passion  ;  and  heaven  alone  knows  whether  there  was 
any  real  woman  in  the  matter,  or  the  whole  thing  was 
an  exercise  in  fancy.  If  these  poems  were  indeed  in- 
spired by  some  living  mistress,  one  would  think  he 
had  never  seen,  never  heard,  and  never  touched  her. 
There  is  nothing  in  any  one  of  these  so  numerous  love- 
songs  to  indicate  who  or  what  the  lady  was.  Was  she 
dark  or  fair,  passionate  or  gentle  like  himself,  witty  or 
simple  }  Was  it  always  one  woman  }  or  are  there  a 
dozen  here  immortalized  in  cold  indistinction  }  The 
old  English  translator  mentions  gray  eyes  in  his  ver- 
sion of  one  of  the  amorous  rondels  ;  so  far  as  I  re- 
member, he  was  driven  by  some  emergency  of  the 
verse  ;  but  in  the  absence  of  all  sharp  lines  of  charac- 
ter and  anything  specific,  we  feel  for  the  moment  a 
sort  of  surprise,  as  though  the  epithet  were  singularly 
happy  and  unusual,  or  as  though  we  had  made  our 
escape  from  cloud  land  into  something  tangible  and 
sure.  The  measure  of  Charles's  indifference  to  all  that 
now  preoccupies  and  excites  a  poet,  Is  best  given  by  a 
positive  example.  If,  besides  the  coming  of  spring, 
any  one  external  circumstance  may  be  said  to  have 
struck  his  imagination,  it  was  the  despatch  oifoiirriers, 
while  on  a  journey,  to  prepare  the  night's  lodging. 


272  CHARLES  OF  ORLEANS. 

This  seems  to  be  his  favorite  image  ;  it  reappears  like 
the  upas-tree  in  the  early  work  of  Coleridge  :  we  may 
judge  with  what  childish  eyes  he  looked  upon  the 
world,  if  one  of  the  sights  which  most  impressed  him 
Avas  that  of  a  man  going  to  order  dinner. 

Although  they  are  not  inspired  by  any  deeper  mo- 
tive than  the  common  run  of  contemporaneous  draw- 
ing-room verses,  those  of  Charles  of  Orleans  are  ex- 
ecuted with  inimitable  lightness  and  delicacy  of  touch. 
They  deal  with  floating  and  colorless  sentiments,  and 
the  writer  is  never  greatly  moved,  but  he  seems  always 
genuine.  He  makes  no  attempt  to  set  off  thin  con- 
ceptions with  a  multiplicity  of  phrases.  His  ballades 
are  generally  thin  and  scanty  of  import ;  for  the  bal- 
lade presented  too  large  a  canvas,  and  he  was  preoccu- 
pied by  technical  requirements.  But  in  the  rondel  he 
has  put  himself  before  all  competitors  by  a  happy 
knack  and  a  prevailing  distinction  of  manner.  He  is 
very  much  more  of  a  duke  in  his  verses  than  in  his 
absurd  and  inconsequential  career  as  a  statesman  ; 
and  how  he  shows  himself  a  duke  is  precisely  by  the 
absence  of  all  pretension,  turgidity,  or  emphasis.  He 
turns  verses,  as  he  would  have  come  into  the  king's 
presence,  with  a  quiet  accomplishment  of  grace. 

Theodore  de  Banville,  the  youngest  poet  of  a  fa- 
mous generation  now  nearly  extinct,  and  himself  a 
sure  and  finished  artist,  knocked  off,  in  his  happiest 
vein,  a  few  experiments  in  imitation  of  Charles  of 
Orleans.  I  would  recommend  these  modern  rondels 
to  all  who  care  about  the  old  duke,  not  onlv  because 


CHARLES  OF  ORLEANS.  273 

they  are  delightful  in  themselves,  but  because  they 
serve  as  a  contrast  to  throw  into  relief  the  peculiarities 
of  their  model.  When  De  Banville  revives  a  forgotten 
form  of  verse—  and  he  has  already  had  the  honor  of 
reviving  the  ballade — he  does  it  in  the  spirit  of  a 
workman  choosing  a  good  tool  wherever  he  can  find 
one,  and  not  at  all  in  that  of  the  dilettante,  who  seeks 
to  renew  bygone  forms  of  thought  and  make  historic 
forgeries.  With  the  ballade  this  seemed  natural 
enough  ;  for  in  connection  with  ballades  the  mind 
recurs  to  Villon,  and  Villon  was  almost  more  of  a 
modern  than  De  Banville  himself.  But  in  the  case  of 
the  rondel,  a  comparison  is  challenged  with  Charles  of 
Orleans,  and  the  difference  between  two  ages  and  two 
literatures  is  illustrated  in  a  few  poems  of  thirteen 
lines.  Something,  certainly,  has  been  retained  of  the 
old  movement ;  the  refrain  falls  in  time  like  a  well- 
played  bass  ;  and  the  very  brevity  of  the  thing,  by 
hampering  and  restraining  the  greater  fecundity  of  the 
modern  mind,  assists  the  imitation.  ButDe  Banville's 
poems  are  full  of  form  and  color  ;  they  smack  racily 
of  modern  life,  and  own  small  kindred  with  the  verse 
of  other  days,  when  it  seems  as  if  men  walked  by  twi  • 
light,  seeing  little,  and  that  with  distracted  eyes,  and 
instead  of  blood,  some  thin  and  spectral  fluid  circu- 
lated in  their  veins.  They  might  gird  themselves  for 
battle,  make  love,  eat  and  drink,  and  acquit  them- 
selves manfully  in  all  the  external  parts  of  life  ;  but  of 
the  life  that  is  within,  and  those  processes  by  which 
we  render  ourselves  an  intelligent  account  of  what  we 


2  74  CHARLES   OF  ORLEANS. 

feel  and  do,  and  so  represent  experience  that  we  for 
the  first  time  make  it  ours,  they  had  only  a  loose  and 
troubled  possession.  They  beheld  or  took  part  in 
great  events,  but  there  was  no  answerable  commotion 
in  their  reflective  being  ;  and  they  passed  throughout 
turbulent  epochs  in  a  sort  of  ghostly  quiet  and  ab- 
straction. Feeling  seems  to  have  been  strangely  dis- 
proportioned  to  the  occasion,  and  words  were  laugh- 
ably trivial  and  scanty  to  set  forth  the  feeling  even  such 
as  it  was.  Juvenal  des  Ursins  chronicles  calamity 
after  calamity,  with  but  one  comment  for  them  all  : 
that  ' '  it  was  great  pity. ' '  Perhaps,  after  too  much 
of  our  florid  literature,  we  find  an  adventitious  charm 
in  what  is  so  different  ;  and  while  the  big  drums  are 
beaten  every  day  by  perspiring  editors  over  the  loss  of 
a  cock-boat  or  the  rejection  of  a  clause,  and  nothing 
is  heard  that  is  not  proclaimed  with  sound  of  trumpet, 
it  is  not  wonderful  if  we  retire  with  pleasure  into  old 
books,  and  listen  to  authors  who  speak  small  and 
clear,  as  if  in  a  private  conversation.  Truly  this  is  so 
with  Charles  of  Orleans.  We  are  pleased  to  find  a 
small  man  without  the  buskin,  and  obvious  senti- 
ments stated  without  affectation.  If  the  sentiments 
are  obvious,  there  is  all  the  more  chance  we  may  have 
experienced  the  like.  As  we  turn  over  the  leaves, 
we  may  find  ourselves  in  sympathy  with  some  one  or 
other  of  these  staid  joys  and  smiling  sorrows.  If  we 
do  we  shall  be  strangely  pleased,  for  there  is  a  genu- 
ine pathos  in  these  simple  words,  and  the  lines  go 
with  a  lilt,  and  sing  themselves  to  music  of  their  own. 


SAMUEL   PEPYS. 

In  two  books  a  fresh  light  has  recently  been  thrown 
on  the  character  and  position  of  Samuel  Pepys.  Mr. 
Mynors  Bright  has  given  us  a  new  transcription  of 
the  Diary,  increasing  it  in  bulk  by  near  a  third,  cor- 
recting many  errors,  and  completing  our  knowledge  of 
the  man  in  some  curious  and  important  points.  We 
can  only  regret  that  he  has  taken  liberties  with  the 
author  and  the  public.  It  is  no  part  of  the  duties  of 
the  editor  of  an  established  classic  to  decide  what 
may  or  may  not  be  "tedious  to  the  reader."  The 
book  is  either  an  historical  document  or  not,  and  in 
condemning  Lord  Braybrooke  Mr.  Bright  condemns 
himself.  As  for  the  time-honored  phrase,  "  unfit  for 
publication,"  without  being  cynical,  we  may  regard 
it  as  the  sign  of  a  precaution  more  or  less  commercial ; 
and  we  may  think,  without  being  sordid,  that  when 
we  purchase  six  huge  and  distressingly  expensive  vol- 
umes, we  are  entitled  to  be  treated  rather  more  like 
scholars  and  rather  less  like  children.  But  Mr.  Bright 
may  rest  assured  :  while  we  complain,  we  are  still 
grateful.  Mr.  Wheatley,  to  divide  our  obligation, 
brings  together,  clearly  and  with  no  lost  words,  a  body 
of  illustrative  material.  Sometimes  we  might  ask  a 
little  more  ;  never,  I  think,  less.      And  as  a  matter  of 


276  SAMUEL   PEP  VS. 

fact,  a  great  part  of  Mr.  Wheatley's  volume  might  be 
transferred,  by  a  good  editor  of  Pepys,  to  the  margin 
of  the  text,  for  it  is  precisely  what  the  reader  wants. 

In  the  light  of  these  two  books,  at  least,  we  have 
now  to  read  our  author.  Between  them  they  contain 
all  we  can  expect  to  learn  for,  it  may  be,  many  years. 
Now,  if  ever,  we  should  be  able  to  form  some  notion 
of  that  unparalleled  figure  in  the  annals  of  mankind — ■ 
unparalleled  for  three  good  reasons  :  first,  because  he 
was  a  man  known  to  his  contemporaries  in  a  halo  of 
almost  historical  pomp,  and  to  his  remote  descendants 
with  an  indecent  familiarity,  like  a  tap-room  com- 
rade ;  second,  because  he  has  outstripped  all  com- 
petitors in  the  art  or  virtue  of  a  conscious  honesty 
about  oneself  ;  and,  third,  because,  being  in  many 
ways  a  very  ordinary  person,  he  has  yet  placed  him- 
self before  the  public  eye  with  such  a  fulness  and  such 
an  intimacy  of  detail  as  might  be  envied  by  a  genius 
like  Montaigne.  Not  then  for  his  own  sake  only, 
but  as  a  character  in  a  unique  position,  endowed  with 
a  unique  talent,  and  shedding  a  unique  light  upon 
the  lives  of  the  mass  of  mankind,  he  is  surely  worthy 
of  prolonged  and  patient  study. 

The  Diary. 

That  there  should  be  such  a  book  as  Pepys's  Diary 
is  incomparably  strange.  Pepys,  in  a  corrupt  and 
idle  period,  played  the  man  in  public  employments, 
toiling  hard  and  keeping  his  honor  bright.  Much  of 
the  little  good  that  is  set  down  to  James  the  Second 


SAMUEL   PKPYS.  277 

comes  by  right  to  Pepys  ;  and  if  it  were  little  for  a 
king,  it  is  much  for  a  subordinate.  To  his  clear, 
capable  head  was  owing  somewhat  of  the  greatness  of 
England  on  the  seas.  In  the  exploits  of  Hawke, 
Rodney,  or  Nelson,  this  dead  Mr.  Pepys  of  the  Navy 
Office  had  some  considerable  share.  He  stood  well 
by  his  business  in  the  appalling  plague  of  1666.  He 
was  loved  and  respected  by  some  of  the  best  and 
Vvisest  men  in  England.  He  was  President  of  the 
Royal  Society  ;  and  when  he  came  to  die,  people  said 
of  his  conduct  in  that  solemn  hour — thinking  it  need- 
less to  say  more — that  it  was  answerable  to  the  great- 
ness of  his  life.  Thus  he  walked  in  dignity,  guards  of 
soldiers  sometimes  attending  him  in  his  walks,  subal- 
terns bowing  before  his  periwig  ;  and  when  he  uttered 
his  thoughts  they  were  suitable  to  his  state  and  ser- 
vices. On  February  8,  1668,  we  find  him  writing  to 
Evelyn,  his  mind  bitterly  occupied  with  the  late  Dutch 
war,  and  some  thoughts  of  the  different  story  of  the 
repulse  of  the  Great  Armada  :  "  Sir,  you  will  not 
wonder  at  the  backwardness  of  my  thanks  for  the  pres- 
ent you  made  me,  so  many  days  since,  of  the  Prospect 
of  the  Medway,  while  the  Hollander  rode  master  in 
it,  when  I  have  told  you  that  the  sight  of  it  hath  led 
me  to  such  reflections  on  my  particular  interest,  by 
my  employment,  in  the  reproach  due  to  that  miscar- 
riage, as  have  given  me  little  less  disquiet  than  he  is 
fancied  to  have  who  found  his  face  in  Michael  Angelo's 
hell.  The  same  should  serve  me  also  in  excuse  for  my 
silence  in  celebrating  your  mastery  shown  in  the  dc 


278  SAMUEL   PEPYS. 

sign  and  draught,  did  not  indignation  rather  than 
courtship  urge  me  so  far  to  commend  them,  as  to 
wish  the  furniture  of  our  House  of  Lords  changed 
from  the  story  of  '88  to  that  of  '(i']  (of  Evelyn's  de- 
signing), till  the  pravity  of  this  were  reformed  to  the 
temper  of  that  age,  wherein  God  Almighty  found  his 
blessings  more  operative  than,  I  fear,  he  doth  in  ours 
his  judgments." 

This  is  a  letter  honorable  to  the  writer,  where  the 
meaning  rather  than  the  words  is  eloquent.  Such  was 
the  account  he  gave  of  himself  to  his  contemporaries  ; 
such  thoughts  he  chose  to  utter,  and  in  such  language  : 
giving  himself  out  for  a  grave  and  patriotic  public  ser- 
vant. We  turn  to  the  same  date  in  the  Diary  by  which 
he  is  known,  after  two  centuries,  to  his  descendants. 
The  entry  begins  in  the  same  key  with  the  letter, 
blaming  the  "  madness  of  the  House  of  Commons" 
and  "  the  base  proceedings,  just  the  epitome  of  all 
our  public  proceedings  in  this  age,  of  the  House  of 
Lords;"  and  then,  without  the  least  transition,  this 
is  how  our  diarist  proceeds  :  "  To  the  Strand,  to  my 
bookseller's,  and  there  bought  an  idle,  rogueish  French 
book,  L'eschoUe  des  Filles,  which  I  have  bought  in 
plain  binding,  avoiding  the  buying  of  it  better  bound, 
because  I  resolve,  as  soon  as  I  have  read  it,  to  burn 
it,  that  it  may  not  stand  in  the  list  of  books,  nor 
among  them,  to  disgrace  them,  if  it  should  be  found.  " 
Even  in  our  day,  when  responsibility  is  so  much  more 
clearly  apprehended,  the  man  who  wrote  the  letter 
would  be  notable  ;  but  what  about  the  man,  I  do  not 


SAMUEL   PEPYS.  279 

say  who  bought  a  roguish  book,  but  who  was  ashamed 
of  doing  so,  yet  did  it,  and  recorded  both  the  doing 
and  the  shame  in  the  pages  of  his  daily  journal  ? 

We  all,  whether  we  write  or  speak,  must  somewhat 
drape  ourselves  when  we  address  our  fellows  ;  at  a 
given  moment  we  apprehend  our  character  and  acts  by 
some  particular  side  ;  we  are  merry  with  one,  grave 
with  another,  as  befits  the  nature  and  demands  of  the 
relation.  Pepys's  letter  to  Evelyn  would  have  little  in 
common  w-ith  that  other  one  to  Mrs.  Knipp  which  he 
signed  by  the  pseudonym  of  Dapper  Dicky  j  yet  each 
would  be  suitable  to  the  character  of  his  correspondent. 
There  is  no  untruth  in  this,  for  man,  being  a  Protean 
animal,  swiftly  shares  and  changes  with  his  company 
and  surroundings  ;  and  these  changes  are  the  better 
part  of  his  education  in  the  world.  To  strike  a  posture 
once  for  all,  and  to  march  through  life  like  a  drum- 
major,  is  to  be  highly  disagreeable  to  others  and  a  fool 
for  oneself  into  the  bargain.  To  Evelyn  and  to  Knipp 
we  understand  the  double  facing  ;  but  to  whom  was 
he  posing  in  the  Diary,  and  what,  in  the  name  of 
astonishment,  was  the  nature  of  the  pose  .?  Had  he 
suppressed  all  mention  of  the  book,  or  had  he  bought 
it,  gloried  in  the  act,  and  cheerfully  recorded  his  glorifi- 
cation, in  either  case  we  should  have  made  him  out. 
But  no  ;  he  is  full  of  precautions  to  conceal  the  "  dis- 
grace" of  the  purchase,  and  yet  speeds  to  chronicle 
the  whole  affair  in  pen  and  ink.  It  is  a  sort  of 
anomaly  in  human  action,  which  we  can  exactly 
parallel  from  another  part  of  the  Diary. 


2  8o  SAMUEL   PEPYS. 

Mrs.  Pepys  had  written  a  paper  of  her  too  just  com- 
plaints against  her  husband,  and  written  it  in  plain  and 
very  pungent  English.  Pepys,  in  an  agony  lest  the 
world  should  come  to  see  it,  brutally  seizes  and  destroys 
the  tell-tale  document ;  and  then — you  disbelieve  your 
eyes  —  down  goes  the  whole  story  with  unsparing 
truth  and  in  the  cruellest  detail.  It  seems  he  has  no 
design  but  to  appear  respectable,  and  here  he  keeps  a 
private  book  to  prove  he  was  not.  You  are  at  first 
faintly  reminded  of  some  of  the  vagaries  of  the  morbid 
religious  diarist ;  but  at  a  moment's  thought  the  re- 
semblance disappears.  The  design  of  Pepys  is  not  at 
all  to  edify.  ;  it  is  not  from  repentance  that  he  chroni- 
cles his  peccadilloes,  for  he  tells  us  when  he  does  re- 
pent, and,  to  be  just  to  him,  there  often  follows  some 
improvement.  Again,  the  sins  of  the  religious  diarist 
are  of  a  very  formal  pattern,  and  are  told  with  an 
elaborate  whine.  But  in  Pepys  you  come  upon  good, 
substantive  misdemeanors  ;  beams  in  his  eye  of  which 
he  alone  remains  unconscious  ;  healthy  outbreaks  of 
the  animal  nature,  and  laughable  subterfuges  to  him- 
self that  always  command  belief  and  often  engage  the 
sympathies. 

Pepys  was  a  young  man  for  his  age,  came  slowly  to 
himself  in  the  world,  sowed  his  wild  oats  late,  took 
late  to  industry,  and  preserved  till  nearly  forty  the 
headlong  gusto  of  a  boy.  So,  to  come  rightly  at  the 
spirit  in  which  the  Diary  was  written,  we  must  recall  a 
class  of  sentiments  which  with  most  of  us  are  over  and 
done  before  the  age  of  twelve.      In  our  tender  years 


SAMUEL   FEPYS.  281 

we  still  preserve  a  freshness  of  surprise  at  our  pro- 
longed existence  ;  events  make  an  impression  out  of 
all  proportion  to  their  consequence  ;  we  are  unspeak- 
ably touched  by  our  own  past  adventures,  and  look 
forward  to  our  future  personality  with  sentimental  in- 
terest. It  was  something  of  this,  I  think,  that  clung 
to  Pepys.  Although  not  sentimental  in  the  abstract, 
he  was  sweetly  sentimental  about  himself.  His  own 
past  clung  about  his  heart,  an  evergreen.  He  was  the 
slave  of  an  association.  He  could  not  pass  by  Isling- 
ton, where  his  father  used  to  carry  him  to  cakes  and 
ale,  but  he  must  light  at  the  "  King's  Head  "  and  eat 
and  drink  "  for  remembrance  of  the  old  house  sake." 
He  counted  it  good  fortune  to  lie  a  night  at  Epsom  to 
renew  his  old  walks,  ' '  where  Mrs.  Hely  and  I  did  use 
to  walk  and  talk,  with  whom  I  had  the  first  senti- 
ments of  love  and  pleasure  in  a  woman's  company, 
discourse  and  taking  her  by  the  hand,  she  being  a 
pretty  woman."  He  goes  about  weighing  up  the 
Assurance,  which  lay  near  Woolwich  under  water,  and 
cries  in  a  parenthesis,  "  Poor  ship,  that  I  have  been 
twice  merry  in,  in  Captain  Holland's  time  ;"  and  after 
revisiting  the  Naseby,  now  changed  into  the  Charles, 
he  confesses  "  it  was  a  great  pleasure  to  myself  to  see 
the  ship  that  I  began  my  good  fortune  in."  The 
stone  that  he  was  cut  for  he  preserved  in  a  case  ;  and  to 
the  Turners  he  kept  alive  such  gratitude  for  their  as- 
sistance that  for  years,  and  after  he  had  begun  to 
mount  himself  into  higher  zones,  he  continued  to  have 
that  family  to  dinner  on  the  anniversary  of  the  opera- 


2  82  SAMUEL   PEP  VS. 

tion.  Not  Hazlitt  nor  Rousseau  had  a  more  romantic 
passion  for  their  past,  although  at  times  they  might 
express  it  more  romantically  ;  and  if  Pepys  shared 
with  them  this  childish  fondness,  did  not  Rousseau, 
who  left  behind  him  the  Confessions,  or  Hazlitt,  who 
wrote  the  Liber  Ajuoris,  and  loaded  his  essays  with 
loving  personal  detail,  share  with  Pepys  in  his  un- 
wearied egotism  ?  For  the  two  things  go  hand  in 
hand  ;  or,  to  be  more  exact,  it  is  the  first  that  makes 
the  second  either  possible  or  pleasing. 

But,  to  be  quite  in  sympathy  with  Pepys,  we  must 
return  once  more  to  the  experience  of  children.  I 
can  remember  to  have  written,  in  the  fly-leaf  of  more 
than  one  book,  the  date  and  the  place  where  I  then 
was — if,  for  instance,  I  was  ill  in  bed  or  sitting  in  a 
certain  garden  ;  these  were  jottings  for  my  future  self  ; 
if  I  should  chance  on  such  a  note  in  after  years,  I 
thought  it  would  cause  me  a  particular  thrill  to  recog- 
nize myself  across  the  intervening  distance.  Indeed, 
I  might  come  upon  them  now,  and  not  be  moved  one 
tittle — which  shows  that  I  have  comparatively  failed  in 
life,  and  grown  older  than  Samuel  Pepys.  For  in  the 
Diary  we  can  find  more  than  one  such  note  of  perfect 
childish  egotism  ;  as  when  he  explains  that  his  candle 
is  going  out,  "  which  makes  me  write  thus  slobber- 
ingly  ;"  or  as  in  this  incredible  particularity,  "To 
my  study,  where  I  only  wrote  thus  much  of  this  day's 
passages  to  this  *,  and  so  out  again  ;"  or  lastly,  as 
here,  with  more  of  circumstance  :  *'  I  staid  up  till  the 
bellman  came  by  with  his  bell  under  my  window,  as 


SAMUEL   PEPYS.  283 

/  zvas  writing  of  this  very  line,  and  cried,  '  Past  one 
of  the  clock,  and  a  cold,  frosty,  windy  morning. '  ' ' 
Such  passages  are  not  to  be  misunderstood.  The  ap- 
peal to  Samuel  Pepys  years  hence  is  unmistakable. 
He  desires  that  dear,  though  unknown,  gentleman 
keenly  to  realize  his  predecessor  ;  to  remember  why  a 
passage  was  uncleanly  written  ;  to  recall  (let  us  fancy, 
with  a  sigh)  the  tones  of  the  bellman,  the  chill  of  the 
early,  windy  morning,  and  the  very  line  his  own  ro- 
mantic self  was  scribing  at  the  moment.  The  man, 
you  will  perceive,  was  making  reminiscences — a  sort 
of  pleasure  by  ricochet,  which  comforts  many  in  dis- 
tress, and  turns  some  others  into  sentimental  liber- 
tines :  and  the  whole  book,  if  you  will  but  look  at  it 
in  that  way,  is  seen  to  be  a  work  of  art  to  Pepys's  own 
address. 

Here,  then,  we  have  the  key  to  that  remarkable  at- 
titude preserved  by  him  throughout  his  Diary,  to  that 
unflinching — I  had  almost  said,  that  unintelligent  — 
sincerity  which  makes  it  a  miracle  among  human 
books.  He  was  not  unconscious  of  his  errors — far 
from  it  ;  he  was  often  startled  into  shame,  often  re- 
formed, often  made  and  broke  his  vows  of  change. 
But  whether  he  did  ill  or  well,  he  was  still  his  own 
unequalled  self  ;  still  that  entrancing  ego  of  whom 
alone  he  cared  to  write  ;  and  still  sure  of  his  own 
affectionate  indulgence,  when  the  parts  should  be 
changed,  and  the  writer  come  to  read  what  he  had 
written.  Whatever  he  did,  or  said,  or  thought,  or 
suffered,  it  was  still  a  trait  of  Pepys,  a  character  of  his 


284  SAMUEL   PEPYS. 

career  ;  and  &s,  to  himself,  he  was  more  interesting 
than  Moses  or  than  Alexander,  so  all  should  be  faith- 
fully set  down.  I  have  called  his  Diary  a  work  of 
art.  Now  when  the  artist  has  found  something,  word 
or  deed,  exactly  proper  to  a  favorite  character  in  play 
or  novel,  he  will  neither  suppress  nor  diminish  it, 
though  the  remark  be  silly  or  the  act  mean.  The 
hesitation  of  Hamlet,  the  credulity  of  Othello,  the 
baseness  of  Emma  Bovary,  or  the  irregularities  of  Mr. 
Swiveller,  caused  neither  disappointment  nor  disgust 
to  their  creators.  And  so  with  Pepys  and  his  adored 
protagonist  :  adored  not  blindly,  but  with  trenchant 
insight  and  enduring,  human  toleration.  I  have  gone 
over  and  over  the  greater  part  of  the  Diary  ;  and  the 
points  where,  to  the  most  suspicious  scrutiny,  he  has 
seemed  not  perfecdy  sincere,  are  so  few,  so  doubtful, 
and  so  petty,  that  I  am  ashamed  to  name  them.  It 
may  be  said  that  we  all  of  us  write  such  a  diary  in  airy 
characters  upon  our  brain  ;  but  I  fear  there  is  a  dis- 
tinction to  be  made  ;  I  fear  that  as  we  render  to  our 
consciousness  an  account  of  our  daily  fortunes  and 
behavior,  we  too  often  weave  a  tissue  of  romantic  com- 
pliments and  dull  excuses  ;  and  even  if  Pepys  were 
the  ass  and  coward  that  men  call  him,  we  must  take 
rank  as  sillier  and  more  cowardly  than  he.  The  bald 
truth  about  oneself,  what  we  are  all  too  timid  to  admit 
when  we  are  not  too  dull  to  see  it,  that  was  what  he 
saw  clearly  and  set  down  unsparingly. 

It  is  improbable  that  the  Diary  can  have  been  car- 
ried on  in  the  same  single  spirit  in  which  it  was  be- 


SAMUEL  PEPYS.  285 

gun.  Pepys  was  not  such  an  ass,  but  he  must  have 
perceived,  as  he  went  on,  the  extraordinary  nature  of 
the  work  he  was  producing.  He  was  a  great  reader, 
and  he  knew  what  other  books  were  hke.  It  must,  at 
least,  have  crossed  his  mind  that  some  one  might  ulti- 
mately decipher  the  manuscript,  and  he  himself,  with 
all  his  pains  and  pleasures,  be  resuscitated  in  some 
later  day  ;  and  the  thought,  although  discouraged, 
must  have  warmed  his  heart.  He  was  not  such  an 
ass,  besides,  but  he  must  have  been  conscious  of  the 
deadly  explosives,  the  gun-cotton  and  the  giant  pow- 
der, he  was  hoarding  in  his  drawer.  Let  some  con- 
temporary light  upon  the  Journal,  and  Pepys  was 
plunged  forever  in  social  and  political  disgrace.  We 
can  trace  the  growth  of  his  terrors  by  two  facts.  In 
1660,  while  the  Diary  was  still  in  its  youth,  he  tells 
about  it,  as  a  matter  of  course,  to  a  lieutenant  in  the 
navy  ;  but  in  1669,  when  it  was  already  near  an  end, 
he  could  have  bitten  his  tongue  out,  as  the  saying  is, 
because  he  had  let  slip  his  secret  to  one  so  grave  and 
friendly  as  Sir  William  Coventry.  And  from  two  other 
facts  I  think  we  may  infer  that  he  had  entertained, 
even  if  he  had  not  acquiesced  in,  the  thought  of  a  far- 
distant  publicity.  The  first  is  of  capital  importance  : 
the  Diary  was  not  destroyed.  The  second — that  he 
took  unusual  precautions  to  confound  the  cipher  in 
"  rogueish"  passages — proves,  beyond  question,  that 
he  was  thinking  of  some  other  reader  besides  himself. 
Perhaps  while  his  friends  were  admiring  the  "  great- 
ness of  his  behavior"  at  the  approach  of   death,  he 


286  SAMUEL   PEP  VS. 

may  have  had  atwinkUng  hope  of  immortahty.  Mens 
cujusque  is  est  qiiisque,  said  his  chosen  motto  ;  and, 
as  he  had  stamped  his  mind  with  every  crook  and 
foible  in  the  pages  of  the  Diary,  he  might  feel  that 
what  he  left  behind  him  was  indeed  himself.  There 
is  perhaps  no  other  instance  so  remarkable  of  the  de- 
sire of  man  for  publicity  and  an  enduring  name.  The 
greatness  of  his  life  was  open,  yet  he  longed  to  com- 
municate its  smallness  also  ;  and,  while  contempo- 
raries bowed  before  him,  he  must  buttonhole  posterity 
with  the  news  that  his  periwig  was  once  alive  with  nits. 
But  this  thought,  although  I  cannot  doubt  he  had  it, 
was  neither  his  first  nor  his  deepest  ;  it  did  not  color 
one  word  that  he  wrote  ;  and  the  Diary,  for  as  long  as 
he  kept  it,  remained  what  it  was  when  he  began,  a 
private  pleasure  for  himself.  It  was  his  bosom  secret ; 
it  added  a  zest  to  all  his  pleasures  ;  he  lived  in  and 
for  it,  and  might  well  write  these  solemn  words,  when 
he  closed  that  confidant  forever:  "And  so  I  betake 
myself  to  that  course  which  is  almost  as  much  as  to 
see  myself  go  into  the  grave  ;  for  which,  and  all  the 
discomforts  that  will  accompany  my  being  blind,  the 
good  God  prepare  me." 

A  Liberal  Genius, 

Pepys  spent  part  of  a  certain  winter  Sunday,  when 
he  had  taken  physic,  composing  ' '  a  song  in  praise  of 
a  liberal  genius  (such  as  I  take  my  own  to  be)  to  all 
studies  and  pleasures."  The  song  was  unsuccessful, 
but  the  Diary  is,  in  a  sense,  the  very  song  that  he  was 


SAMUEL   PEP  VS.  287 

seeking  ;  and  his  portrait  by  Hales,  so  admirably  re- 
produced in  Mynors  Bright' s  edition,  is  a  confirma- 
tion of  the  Diary.  Hales,  it  would  appear,  had  known 
his  business  ;  and  though  he  put  his  sitter  to  a  deal 
of  trouble,  almost  breaking  his  neck  "to  have  the 
portrait  full  of  shadows, "  and  draping  him  in  an  Ind- 
ian gown  hired  expressly  for  the  purpose,  he  was  pre- 
occupied about  no  merely  picturesque  effects,  but  to 
portray  the  essence  of  the  man.  Whether  we  read  the 
picture  by  the  Diary  or  the  Diary  by  the  picture,  we 
shall  at  least  agree  that  Hales  was  among  the  number 
of  those  who  can  "  surprise  the  manners  in  the  face." 
Here  we  have  a  mouth  pouting,  moist  with  desires  ; 
eyes  greedy,  protuberant,  and  yet  apt  for  weeping  too  ; 
a  nose  great  alike  in  character  and  dimensions  ;  and 
altogether  a  most  fleshly,  melting  countenance.  The 
face  is  attractive  by  its  promise  of  reciprocity.  I  have 
used  the  word  greedy,  but  the  reader  must  not  sup- 
pose that  he  can  change  it  for  that  closely  kindred  one 
of  hungry,  for  there  is  here  no  aspiration,  no  waiting 
for  better  things,  but  an  animal  joy  in  all  that  comes. 
It  could  never  be  the  face  of  an  artist ;  it  is  the  face 
of  a  viveiir — kindly,  pleased  and  pleasing,  protected 
from  excess  and  upheld  in  contentment  by  the  shift- 
ing versatility  of  his  desires.  For  a  si/igle  desire  is 
more  rightly  to  be  called  a  lust  ;  but  there  is  health 
in  a  variety,  where  one  may  balance  and  control  an- 
other. 

The  whole  world,  town  or  country,  was  to  Pepys  a 
garden  of  Armida.     Wherever  he  went,  his  steps  were 


288  SAMUEL  PEP  VS. 

winged  with  the  most  eager  expectation  ;  whatever  "he 
did,  it  was  done  with  the  most  lively  pleasure.  An 
insatiable  curiosity  in  all  the  shows  of  the  world  and 
all  the  secrets  of  knowledge,  filled  him  brimful 
of  the  longing  to  travel,  and  supported  him  in  the 
toils  of  study.  Rome  was  the  dream  of  his  life  ;  he 
>yas  never  happier  than  when  he  read  or  talked  of  the 
Eternal  City.  When  he  was  in  Holland,  he  was 
"  with  child  "  to  see  any  strange  thing.  Meeting 
some  friends  and  singing  with  them  in  a  palace  near 
the  Hague,  his  pen  fails  him  to  express  his  passion  of 
delight,  "  the  more  so  because  in  a  heaven  of  pleasure 
and  in  a  strange  country. "  He  must  go  to  see  all 
famous  executions.  He  must  needs  visit  the  body  of 
a  murdered  man,  defaced  "  with  a  broad  wound,''  he 
says,  "  that  makes  my  hand  now  shake  to  write  of  it. " 
He  learned  to  dance,  and  was  "  like  to  make  a 
dancer."  He  learned  to  sing,  and  walked  about 
Gray's  Inn  Fields  "  humming  to  myself  (which  is  now 
my  constant  practice)  the  trillo."  He  learned  to  play 
the  lute,  the  flute,  the  flageolet,  and  the  theorbo,  and 
it  was  not  the  fault  of  his  intention  if  he  did  not  learn 
the  harpsichord  or  the  spinet.  He  learned  to  com- 
pose songs,  and  burned  to  give  forth  ' '  a  scheme  and 
theory  of  music  not  yet  ever  made  in  the  world." 
When  he  heard  "  a  fellow  whistle  like  a  bird  exceed- 
ing well,"  he  promised  to  return  another  day  and  give 
an  angel  for  a  lesson  in  the  art.  Once,  he  writes,  "  I 
took  the  Bezan  back  with  me,  and  with  a  brave  gale 
and  tide  reached  up  that  night  to   the   Hope,  taking 


SAMUEL  PEPYS.  ^09 

great  pleasure  in  learning  the  seamen's  manner  of 
singing  when  they  sound  the  depths."  If  he  found 
himself  rusty  in  his  Latin  grammar,  he  must  fall  to  it 
like  a  schoolboy.  He  was  a  member  of  Harrington's 
Club  till  its  dissolution,  and  of  the  Royal  Society  be- 
fore it  had  received  the  name.  Boyle's  Hydrostatics 
was  "  of  infinite  delight"  to  him,  walking  in  Barnes 
Elms.  We  find  him  comparing  Bible  concordances, 
a  captious  judge  of  sermons,  deep  in  Descartes  and 
Aristotle.  We  find  him,  in  a  single  year,  studying 
timber  and  the  measurement  of  timber  ;  tar  and  oil, 
hemp,  and  the  process  of  preparing  cordage  ;  mathe- 
matics and  accounting  ;  the  hull  and  the  rigging  of 
ships  from  a  model  ;  and  "  looking  and  improving 
himself  of  the  (naval)  stores  with" — hark  to  the  fel- 
low ! — "great  delight."  His  familiar  spirit  of  de- 
light was  not  the  same  with  Shelley's  ;  but  how  true 
it  was  to  him  through  life  !  He  is  only  copying  some- 
thing, and  behold,  he  "  takes  great  pleasure  to  rule 
the  lines,  and  have  the  capital  words  wrote  with  red 
ink  ;"  he  has  only  had  his  coal-cellar  emptied  and 
cleaned,  and  behold,  "  it  do  please  him  exceedingly." 
A  hog's  harslett  is  "  a  piece  of  meat  he  loves."  He 
cannot  ride  home  in  my  Lord  Sandwich's  coach,  but 
he  must  exclaim,  with  breathless  gusto,  "  his  noble, 
rich  coach."  When  he  is  bound  for  a  supper  party, 
he  anticipates  a  "  glut  of  pleasure."  When  he  has  a 
new  watch,  "  to  see  my  childishness,"  says  he,  "I 
could  not  forbear  carrying  it  in  my  hand  and  seeing 
what  o'clock   it  was  an   hundred   times."     To  goto 


290  SAMUEL   PEP  VS. 

Vauxhall,  he  says,  and  "  to  hear  the  nightingales  and 
other  birds,  hear  fiddles,  and  there  a  harp  and  here  a 
Jew's  trump,  and  here  laughing,  and  there  fine  peo- 
ple walking,  is  mighty  divertising. "  And  the  night- 
ingales, 1  take  it,  were  particularly  dear  to  him  ;  and 
it  was  again  "  with  great  pleasure"  that  he  paused  to 
hear  them  as  he  walked  to  Woolwich,  while  the  fog 
was  rising  and  the  April  sun  broke  through. 

He  must  always  be  doing  something  agreeable,  and, 
by  preference,  two  agreeable  things  at  once.  In  his 
house  he  had  a  box  of  carpenter's  tools,  two  dogs,  an 
eagle,  a  canary,  and  a  blackbird  that  whistled  tunes, 
lest,  even  in  that  full  life,  he  should  chance  upon  an 
empty  moment.  If  he  had  to  wait  for  a  dish  of 
poached  eggs,  he  must  put  in  the  time  by  playing  on 
the  flageolet ;  if  a  sermon  were  dull,  he  must  read  in 
the  book  of  Tobit  or  divert  his  mind  with  sly  advances 
on  the  nearest  women.  When  he  walked,  it  must  be 
with  a  book  in  his  pocket  to  beguile  the  way  in  case 
the  nightingales  were  silent ;  and  even  along  the  streets 
of  London,  with  so  many  pretty  faces  to  be  spied  for 
and  dignitaries  to  be  saluted,  his  trail  was  marked  by 
little  debts  "  for  wine,  pictures,  etc.,"  the  true  head- 
mark  of  a  life  intolerant  of  any  joyless  passage.  He 
had  a  kind  of  idealism  in  pleasure  ;  like  the  princess 
in  the  fairy  story,  he  was  conscious  of  a  rose-leaf  out 
of  place.  Dearly  as  he  loved  to  talk,  he  could  not 
enjoy  nor  shine  in  a  conversation  when  he  thought 
himself  unsuitably  dressed.  Dearly  as  he  loved  eat- 
ing, he   "  knew  not  how  to  eat  alone  ;"  pleasure  for 


SAMUEL   PEP  VS.  291 

him  must  heighten  pleasure  ;  and  the  eye  and  ear 
must  be  flattered  Hke  the  palate  ere  he  avow  himself 
content.  He  had  no  zest  in  a  good  dinner  when  it 
fell  to  be  eaten  "  in  a  bad  street  and  in  a  periwig- 
maker's  house  ;"  and  a  collation  was  spoiled  for  him 
by  indifferent  music.  His  body  was  indefatigable, 
doing  him  yeoman's  service  in  this  breathless  chase  of 
pleasures.  On  April  11,  1662,  he  mentions  that  he 
went  to  bed  "  weary,  which  I  seldom  am  /'  and  al- 
ready over  thirty,  he  would  sit  up  all  night  cheerfully 
to  see  a  comet.  But  it  is  never  pleasure  that  exhausts 
the  pleasure- seeker  ;  for  in  that  career,  as  in  all  others, 
it  is  failure  that  kills.  The  man  who  enjoys  so  wholly 
and  bears  so  impatiently  the  slightest  widowhood  from 
joy,  is  just  the  man  to  lose  a  night's  rest  over  some 
paltry  question  of  his  right  to  fiddle  on  the  leads,  or 
to  be  "  vexed  to  the  blood"  by  a  solecism  in  his 
wife's  attire  ;  and  we  find  in  consequence  that  he  was 
always  peevish  when  he  was  hungry,  and  that  his  head 
"  aked  mightily"  after  a  dispute.  But  nothing  could 
divert  him  from  his  aim  in  life  ;  his  remedy  in  care 
was  the  same  as  his  delight  in  prosperity  ;  it  was  with 
pleasure,  and  with  pleasure  only,  that  he  sought  to 
drive  out  sorrow  ;  and,  whether  he  was  jealous  of  his 
wife  o'r  skulking  from  a  bailiff,  he  would  equally  take 
refuge  in  the  theatre.  There,  if  the  house  be  full  and 
the  company  noble,  if  the  songs  be  tunable,  the  actors 
perfect,  and  the  play  diverting,  this  odd  hero  of  the 
secret  Diary,  this  private  self- adorer,  will  speedily  be 
healed  of  his  distresses. 


292  SAMUEL   PEPYS. 

Equally  pleased  with  a  watch,  a  coach,  a  piece  of 
meat,  a  tune  upon  the  fiddle,  or  a  fact  in  hydrostatics, 
Pepys  was  pleased  yet  more  by  the  beauty,  the  worth, 
the  mirth,  or  the  mere  scenic  attitude  in  life  of  his  fel- 
low-creatures. He  shows  himself  throughout  a  sterling 
humanist.  Indeed,  he  who  loves  himself,  not  in  idle 
vanity,  but  with  a  plenitude  of  knowledge,  is  the  best 
equipped  of  all  to  love  his  neighbors.  And  perhaps 
it  is  in  this  sense  that  charity  may  be  most  properly 
said  to  begin  at  home.  It  does  not  matter  what  qual- 
ity a  person  has  :  Pepys  can  appreciate  and  love  him 
for  it.  He  '  fills  his  eyes"  with  the  beauty  of  Lady 
Castlemaine  ;  indeed,  he  may  be  said  to  dote  upon 
the  thought  of  her  for  years  ;  if  a  woman  be  good- 
looking  and  not  painted,  he  will  walk  miles  to  have 
another  sight  of  her  ;  and  even  when  a  lady  by  a  mis- 
chance spat  upon  his  clothes,  he  was  immediately  con- 
soled when  he  had  observed  that  she  was  pretty.  But, 
on  the  other  hand,  he  is  delighted  to  see  Mrs.  Pett 
upon  her  knees,  and  speaks  thus  of  his  Aunt  James  : 
"  a  poor,  religious,  well-meaning,  good  soul,  talking 
of  nothing  but  God  Almighty,  and  that  with  so  much 
innocence  that  mightily  pleased  me. ' '  He  is  taken 
with  Pen's  merriment  and  loose  songs,  but  not  less 
taken  with  the  sterling  worth  of  Coventry.  He  is  jolly 
with  a  drunken  sailor,  but  listens  with  interest  and 
patience,  as  he  rides  the  Essex  roads,  to  the  story  of  a 
Quaker's  spiritual  trials  and  convictions.  He  lends  a 
critical  ear  to  the  discourse  of  kings  and  royal  dukes. 
He  spends  an  evening  at  Vauxhall  with  "  Killigrew 


SAMUEL   PEPYS.  293 

and  young  Newport — 'loose  company,"  says  he,  "  but 
worth  a  man's  being  in  for  once,  to  know  the  nature 
of  it,  and  their  manner  of  talk  and  lives.  "  And  when 
a  rag-boy  lights  him  home,  he  examines  him  about 
his  business  and  other  ways  of  livelihood  for  destitute 
children.  This  is  almost  half-way  to  the  beginning  of 
philanthropy  ;  had  it  only  been  the  fashion,  as  it  is  at 
present,  Pepys  had  perhaps  been  a  man  famous  for 
good  deeds.  And  it  is  through  this  quality  that  he 
rises,  at  times,  superior  to  his  surprising  egotism  ;  his 
interest  in  the  love  affairs  of  others  is,  indeed,  imper- 
sonal ;  he  is  filled  with  concern  for  my  Lady  Castle- 
maine,  whom  he  only  knows  by  sight,  shares  in  her 
very  jealousies,  joys  with  her  in  her  successes  ;  and  it 
is  not  untrue,  however  strange  it  seems  in  his  abrupt 
presentment,  that  he  loved  his  maid  Jane  because  she 
was  in  love  with  his  man  Tom. 

Let  us  hear  him,  for  once,  at  length  :  "  So  the 
women  and  W.  Hewer  and  I  walked  upon  the  Downes, 
where  a  flock  of  sheep  was  ;  and  the  most  pleasant 
and  innocent  sight  that  ever  I  saw  in  my  life.  We 
found  a  shepherd  and  his  little  boy  reading,  far  from 
any  houses  or  sight  of  people,  the  Bible  to  him  ;  so  I 
made  the  boy  read  to  me,  which  he  did  with  the  forced 
tone  that  children  do  usually  read,  that  was  mighty 
pretty  ;  and  then  I  did  give  him  something,  and  went 
to  the  father,  and  talked  with  him.  He  did  content 
himself  mightily  in  my  liking  his  boy's  reading,  and 
did  bless  God  for  him,  the  most  like  one  of  the  old 
patriarchs  that  ever  I  saw  in  my  life,  and  it  brought 


294  SAMUEL   PEPYS. 

those  thoughts  of  the  old  age  of  the  world  in  my  mind 
for  two  or  three  days  after.  We  took  notice  of  his 
woollen  knit  stockings  of  two  colors  mixed,  and  of  his 
shoes  shod  with  iron,  both  at  the  toe  and  heels,  and 
with  great  nails  in  the  soles  of  his  feet,  which  was 
mighty  pretty  ;  and  taking  notice  of  them,  '  Why,' 
says  the  poor  man,  '  the  downes,  you  see,  are  full  of 
stones,  and  we  are  faine  to  shoe  ourselves  thus  ;  and 
these,'  says  he,  '  will  make  the  stones  fly  till  they  ring 
before  me.'  I  did  give  the  poor  man  something,  for 
which  he  was  mighty  thankful,  and  I  tried  to  cast 
stones  with  his  home  crooke.  He  values  his  dog 
mightily,  that  would  turn  a  sheep  any  way  which  he 
would  have  him,  when  he  goes  to  fold  them  ;  told  me 
there  was  about  eighteen  score  sheep  in  his  flock,  and 
that  he  hath  four  shillings  a  week  the  year  round  for 
keeping  of  them  ;  and  Mrs.  Turner,  in  the  common 
fields  here,  did  gather  one  of  the  prettiest  nosegays 
that  ever  I  saw  in  my  life." 

And  so  the  story  rambles  on  to  the  end  of  that  day's 
pleasuring  ;  with  cups  of  milk,  and  glowworms,  and 
people  walking  at  sundown  with  their  wives  and  chil- 
dren, and  all  the  way  home  Pepys  still  dreaming  ' '  of 
the  old  age  of  the  world  "  and  the  early  innocence 
of  man.  This  was  how  he  walked  through  life,  his 
eyes  and  ears  wide  open,  and  his  hand,  you  will 
observe,  not  shut  ;  and  thus  he  observed  the  lives, 
the  speech,  and  the  m.anners  of  his  fellow-men,  with 
prose  fidelity  of  detail  and  yet  a  lingering  glamour  of 
romance. 


SAMUEL   PEPYS.  295 

It  was  "  two  or  three  days  after"  that  he  extended 
this  passage  in  the  pages  of  his  Journal,  and  the  style 
has  thus  the  benefit  of  some  reflection.  It  is  generally 
supposed  that,  as  a  writer,  Pepys  must  rank  at  the 
bottom  of  the  scale  of  merit.  But  a  style  which  is 
indefatigably  lively,  telling,  and  picturesque  through 
six  large  volumes  of  everyday  experience,  which  deals 
with  the  whole  matter  of  a  life,  and  yet  is  rarely  weari- 
some, which  condescends  to  the  most  fastidious  par- 
ticulars, and  yet  sweeps  all  away  in  the  forthright  cur- 
rent of  the  narrative,  — such  a  style  may  be  ungram- 
matical,  it  may  be  inelegant,  it  may  be  one  tissue  of 
mistakes,  but  it  can  never  be  devoid  of  merit.  The 
first  and  the  true  function  of  the  writer  has  been  thor- 
oughly performed  throughout  ;  and  though  the  man- 
ner of  his  utterance  may  be  childishly  awkward,  the 
matter  has  been  transformed  and  assimilated  by  his 
unfeigned  interest  and  delight.  The  gusto  of  the  man 
speaks  out  fierily  after  all  these  years.  For  the  differ- 
ence between  Pepys  and  Shelley,  to  return  to  that  half 
whimsical  approximation,  is  one  of  quality  but  not 
one  of  degree  ;  in  his  sphere,  Pepys  felt  as  keenly, 
and  his  is  the  true  prose  of  poetry — prose  because  the 
spirit  of  the  man  was  narrow  and  earthly,  but  poetry 
because  he  was  delightedly  alive.  Hence,  in  such  a 
passage  as  this  about  the  Epsom  shepherd,  the  result 
upon  the  reader's  mind  is  entire  conviction  and  un- 
mingled  pleasure.  So,  you  feel,  the  thing  fell  out, 
not  otherwise  ;  and  you  would  no  more  change  it 
than  you  would  change  a  sublimity  of  Shakespeare's, 


296  SAMUEL   PEP  VS. 

a  homely  touch  of  Bunyan's,  or  a  favored  reminis- 
cence of  your  own. 

There  never  was  a  man  nearer  being  an  artist,  who 
yet  was  not  one.  The  tang  was  in  the  family  ;  while 
he  was  writing  the  journal  for  our  enjoyment  in  his 
comely  house  in  Navy  Gardens,  no  fewer  than  two  of 
his  cousins  were  tramping  the  fens,  kit  under  arm,  to 
make  music  to  the  country  girls.  But  he  himself, 
though  he  could  play  so  many  instruments  and  pass 
judgment  in  so  many  fields  of  art,  remained  an  am- 
ateur. It  is  not  given  to  any  one  so  keenly  to  enjoy, 
without  some  greater  power  to  understand.  That  he 
did  not  like  Shakespeare  as  an  artist  for  the  stage  may 
be  a  fault,  but  it  is  not  without  either  parallel  or  ex- 
cuse. He  certainly  admired  him  as  a  poet  ;  he  was 
the  first  beyond  mere  actors  on  the  rolls  of  that  in- 
numerable array  who  have  got  "  To  be  or  not  to  be" 
by  heart.  Nor  was  he  content  with  that  ;  it  haunted 
his  mind  ;  he  quoted  it  to  himself  in  the  pages  of  the 
Diary,  and,  rushing  in  where  angels  fear  to  tread,  he 
set  it  to  music.  Nothing,  indeed,  is  more  notable 
than  the  heroic  quality  of  the  verses  that  our  little  sen- 
sualist in  a  periwig  chose  out  to  marry  with  his  own 
mortal  strains.  Some  gust  from  brave  Elizabethan 
times  must  have  warmed  his  spirit,  as  he  sat  tuning 
his  sublime  theorbo.  "  To  be  or  not  to  be.  Whether 
'tis  nobler"  — "  Beauty  retire,  thou  dost  my  pity 
move' ' — "  It  is  decreed,  nor  shall  thy  fate,  O  Rome  ;" 
— open  and  dignified  in  the  sound,  various  and  ma- 
jestic in  the  sentiment,  it  was  no  inapt,  as  it  was  cer- 


SAMUEL   PEP  VS.  297 

tainly  no  timid,  spirit  that  selected  such  a  range  of 
themes.  Of  "  Gaze  not  on  Swans,"  I  know  no  more 
than  these  four  words  ;  yet  that  also  seems  to  promise 
well.  It  was,  however,  on  a  probable  suspicion,  the 
work  of  his  master,  Mr.  Berkenshaw — as  the  drawings 
that  figure  at  the  breaking  up  of  a  young  ladies'  sem- 
inary are  the  work  of  the  professor  attached  to  the  es- 
tablishment. Mr.  Berkenshaw  was  not  altogether 
happy  in  his  pupil.  The  amateur  cannot  usually  rise 
into  the  artist,  some  leaven  of  the  world  still  clogging 
him  ;  and  we  find  Pepys  behaving  like  a  pickthank 
to  the  man  who  taught  him  composition.  In  relation 
to  the  stage,  which  he  so  warmly  loved  and  under- 
stood, he  was  not  only  more  hearty,  but  more  gener- 
ous to  others.  Thus  he  encounters  Colonel  Reames, 
"a  man,"  says  he,  "who  understands  and  loves  a 
play  as  well  as  I,  and  I  love  him  for  it. ' '  And  again, 
when  he  and  his  wife  had  seen  a  most  ridiculous  in- 
sipid piece,  ' '  Glad  we  were, ' '  he  writes,  ' '  that  Bet- 
terton  had  no  part  in  it. "  It  is  by  such  a  Zealand 
loyalty  to  those  who  labor  for  his  delight  that  the  am- 
ateur grows  worthy  of  the  artist.  And  it  should  be 
kept  in  mind  that,  not  only  in  art,  but  in  morals, 
Pepys  rejoiced  to  recognize  his  betters.  There  was 
noi  one  speck  of  envy  in  the  whole  human-hearted 
egotist. 

Respectability, 

When  writers  inveigh  against  respectability,  in  the 
present  degraded  meaning  of  the  word,  they  are  usu- 


298  SAMUEL   PEPYS. 

ally  suspected  of  a  taste  for  clay  pipes  and  beer  cellars  ; 
and  their  performances  are  thought  to  hail  from  the 
OwVs  Nest  of  the  comedy.  They  have  something 
more,  however,  in  their  eye  than  the  dulness  of  a 
round  million  dinner  parties  that  sit  down  yearly  in 
old  England.  For  to  do  anything  because  others  do 
it,  and  not  because  the  thing  is  good,  or  kind,  or  hon- 
est in  its  own  right,  is  to  resign  all  moral  control  and 
captaincy  upon  yourself,  and  go  post-haste  to  the  devil 
with  the  greater  number.  We  smile  over  the  ascen- 
dency of  priests  ;  but  I  had  rather  follow  a  priest  than 
what  they  call  the  leaders  of  society.  No  life  can 
better  than  that  of  Pepys  illustrate  the  dangers  of  this 
respectable  theory  of  living.  For  what  can  be  more 
untoward  than  the  occurrence,  at  a  critical  period  and 
while  the  habits  are  still  pliable,  of  such  a  sweeping 
transformation  as  the  return  of  Charles  the  Second  .? 
Round  went  the  whole  fleet  of  England  on  the  other 
tack  ;  and  while  a  few  tall  pintas,  Milton  or  Pen,  still 
sailed  a  lonely  course  by  the  stars  and  their  own  pri- 
vate compass,  the  cock-boat,  Pepys,  must  go  about 
with  the  majority  among  "  the  stupid  starers  and  the 
loud  huzzas." 

The  respectable  are  not  led  so  much  by  any  desire 
of  applause  as  by  a  positive  need  for  countenance. 
The  weaker  and  the  tamer  the  man,  the  more  will  he 
require  this  support  ;  and  any  positive  quality  relieves 
him,  by  just  so  much,  of  this  dependence.  In  a  dozen 
ways,  Pepys  was  quite  strong  enough  to  please  him- 
self without  regard  for  others  ;  but  his  positive  qualities 


SAMUEL  PEP  VS.  299 

were  not  coextensive  with  the  field  of  conduct ;  and  in 
many  parts  of  life  he  followed,  with  gleeful  precision, 
in  the  footprints  of  the  contemporary  Mrs.  Grundy. 
In  morals,  particularly,  he  lived  by  the  countenance 
of  others  ;  felt  a  slight  from  another  more  keenly  than 
a  meanness  in  himself  ;  and  then  first  repented  when 
he  was  found  out.  You  could  talk  of  religion  or  mo- 
rality to  such  a  man  ;  and  by  the  artist  side  of  him,  by 
his  lively  sympathy  and  apprehension,  he  could  rise, 
as  it  were  dramatically,  to  the  significance  of  what  you 
said.  All  that  matter  in  religion  which  has  been  nick- 
named other-worldliness  was  strictly  in  his  gamut ; 
but  a  rule  of  life  that  should  make  a  man  rudely  vir- 
tuous, following  right  in  good  report  and  ill  report, 
was  foolishness  and  a  stumbling-block  to  Pepys.  He 
was  much  thrown  across  the  Friends  ;  and  nothing 
can  be  more  instructive  than  his  attitude  toward  these 
most  interesting  people  of  that  age.  I  have  mentioned 
how  he  conversed  with  one  as  he  rode  ;  when  he  saw 
some  brought  from  a  meeting  under  arrest,  "  I  would 
to  God,"  said  he,  "  they  would  either  conform,  or  be 
more  wise  and  not  be  catched  ;' '  and  to  a  Quaker  in 
his  own  office  he  extended  a  timid  though  effectual 
protection.  Meanwhile  there  was  growing  up  next 
door  to  him  that  beautiful  nature,  William  Pen.  It 
is  odd  that  Pepys  condemned  him  for  a  fop  ;  odd, 
though  natural  enough  when  you  see  Pen's  portrait, 
that  Pepys  was  jealous  of  him  with  his  wife.  But  the 
cream  of  the  story  is  when  Pen  publishes  his  Satidy 
Foiindatmi  Shaken,  and  Pepys  has  it  read  aloud  by  his 


300  SAMUEL  PEP  VS. 

wife.  "  I  find  it,"  he  says,  "  so  well  writ  as,  I  think, 
it  is  too  good  for  him  ever  to  have  writ  it ;  and  it  is  a 
serious  sort  oi  book,  and  not  Jit /or  everybody  to  read.'' 
Nothing  is  more  galling  to  the  merely  respectable  than 
to  be  brought  in  contact  with  religious  ardor.  Pepys 
had  his  own  foundation,  sandy  enough,  but  dear  to 
him  from  practical  considerations,  and  he  would  read 
the  book  with  true  uneasiness  of  spirit  ;  for  conceive 
the  blow  if,  by  some  plaguy  accident,  this  Pen  were  to 
convert  him  !  It  was  a  different  kind  of  doctrine  that 
he  judged  profitable  for  himself  and  others.  "  A  good 
sermon  of,  Mr.  Gifford's  at  our  church,  upon  '  Seek 
ye  first  the  kingdom  of  heaven.'  A  very  excellent  and 
persuasive,  good  and  moral  sermon.  He  showed,  like 
a  wise  man,  that  righteousness  is  a  surer  moral  way  of 
being  rich  than  sin  and  villainy."  It  is  thus  that 
respectable  people  desire  to  have  their  Greathearts 
address  them,  telling,  in  mild  accents,  how  you  may 
make  the  best  of  both  worlds,  and  be  a  moral  hero 
without  courage,  kindness,  or  troublesome  reflection  ; 
and  thus  the  Gospel,  cleared  of  Eastern  metaphor,  be- 
comes a  manual  of  worldly  prudence,  and  a  handy- 
book  for  Pepys  and  the  successful  merchant. 

The  respectability  of  Pepys  was  deeply  grained.  He 
has  no  idea  of  truth  except  for  the  Diary.  He  has  no 
care  that  a  thing  shall  be,  if  it  but  appear  ;  gives  out 
that  he  has  inherited  a  good  estate,  when  he  has  seem- 
ingly got  nothing  but  a  lawsuit  ;  and  is  pleased  to  be 
thought  liberal  when  he  knows  he  has  been  mean. 
He  is  conscientiously  ostentatious.     I  say  conscien- 


SAMUEL   PEPYS.  30 1 

tiously,  with  reason.  He  could  never  have  been 
taken  for  a  fop,  Hke  Pen,  but  arrayed  himself  in  a 
manner  nicely  suitable  to  his  position.  For  long  he 
hesitated  to  assume  the  famous  periwig  ;  for  a  public 
man  should  travel  gravely  with  the  fashions,  not  fop- 
pishly before,  nor  dowdily  behind,  the  central  move- 
ment of  his  age.  For  long  he  durst  not  keep  a  car- 
riage ;  that,  in  his  circumstances,  would  have  been 
improper  ;  but  a  times  comes,  with  the  growth  of  his 
fortune,  when  the  impropriety  has  shifted  to  the  other 
side,  and  he  is  "  ashamed  to  be  seen  in  a  hackney." 
Pepys  talked  about  being  ' '  a  Quaker  or  some  very 
melancholy  thing  ;"  for  my  part,  I  can  imagine  noth- 
ing so  melancholy,  because  nothing  half  so  silly,  as  to 
be  concerned  about  such  problems.  But  so  respect- 
ability and  the  duties  of  society  haunt  and  burden 
their  poor  devotees  ;  and  what  seems  at  first  the  very 
primrose  path  of  life,  proves  difficult  and  thorny  like 
the  rest.  And  the  time  comes  to  Pepys,  as  to  all  the 
merely  respectable,  when  he  must  not  only  order  his 
pleasures,  but  even  clip  his  virtuous  movements,  to 
the  public  patter  of  the  age.  There  was  some  jug- 
gling among  officials  to  avoid  direct  taxation  ;  and 
Pepys,  with  a  noble  impulse,  growing  ashamed  of  this 
dishonesty,  designed  to  charge  himself  with  £1000  ; 
but  finding  none  to  set  him  an  example,  "  nobody  of 
our  ablest  merchants"  with  this  moderate  liking  for 
clean  hands,  he  judged  it  "  not  decent ;"  he  feared  it 
would  "be  thought  vain  glory;"  and,  rather  than 
appear   singular,    cheerfully  remained  a  thief.     One 


30  2  SAMUEL    PEP  VS. 

able  merchant's  countenance,  and  Pepys  had  dared 
to  do  an  honest  act  !  Had  he  found  one  brave  spirit, 
properly  recognized  by  society,  he  might  have  gone 
far  as  a  disciple.  Mrs.  Turner,  it  is  true,  can  fill 
him  full  of  sordid  scandal,  and  make  him  believe, 
against  the  testimony  of  his  senses, that  Pen's  venison 
pasty  stank  like  the  devil  ;  but,  on  the  other  hand. 
Sir  William  Coventry  can  raise  him  by  a  word  into 
another  being.  Pepys,  when  he  is  with  Coventry, 
talks  in  the  vein  of  an  old  Roman.  What  does  he 
care  for  office  or  emolument  ?  "  Thank  God,  I  have 
enough  of  my  own,"  says  he,  "  to  buy  me  a  good 
book  and  a  good  fiddle,  and  I  have  a  good  wife." 
And  again,  we  find  this  pair  projecting  an  old  age 
when  an  ungrateful  country  shall  have  dismissed  them 
from  the  field  of  public  service  ;  Coventry  living  re- 
tired in  a  fine  house,  and  Pepys  dropping  in,  "  it  may 
be,  to  read  a  chapter  of  Seneca. ' ' 

Under  this  influence,  the  only  good  one  in  his  life, 
Pepys  continued  zealous  and,  for  the  period,  pure  in 
his  employment.  He  would  not  be  "  bribed  to  be 
unjust,"  he  says,  though  he  was  "  not  so  squeamish 
as  to  refuse  a  present  after,"  suppose  the  king  to 
have  received  no  wrong.  His  new  arrangement  for 
the  victualling  of  Tangier,  he  tells  us  with  honest 
complacency,  will  save  the  king  a  thousand  and  gain 
Pepys  three  hundred  pounds  a  year, — a  statement 
which  exactly  fixes  the  degree  of  the  age's  enlighten- 
ment. But  for  his  industry  and  capacity  no  praise 
can  be  too  hijrh.     It  was  an  unendina;  struggle  for  the 


SAMUEL  FEPYS.  303 

man  to  stick  to  his  business  in  such  a  garden  of  Armi- 
da  as  he  found  this  hfe  ;  and  the  story  of  his  oaths, 
so  often  broken,  so  courageously  renewed,  is  worthy 
rather  of  admiration  than  the  contempt  it  has  re- 
ceived. 

Elsewhere,  and  beyond  the  sphere  of  Coventry's  in- 
fluence, we  find  him  losing  scruples  and  daily  com- 
plying further  with  the  age.  When  he  began  the 
Journal,  he  was  a  trifle  prim  and  puritanic  ;  merry 
enough,  to  be  sure,  over  his  private  cups,  and  still  re- 
membering Magdalene  ale  and  his  acquaintance  with 
Mrs.  Ainsworth  of  Cambridge.  But  youth  is  a  hot 
season  with  all  ;  when  a  man  smells  April  and  May 
he  is  apt  at  times  to  stumble  ;  and  in  spite  of  a  disor- 
dered practice,  Pepys's  theory,  the  better  things  that 
he  approved  and  followed  after,  we  may  even  say  were 
strict.  Where  there  was  "  tag,  rag,  and  bobtail, 
dancing,  singing,  and  drinking,"  he  felt  "  ashamed, 
and  went  away;"  and  when  he  slept  in  church,  he 
prayed  God  forgive  him.  In  but  a  little  while  we 
find  him  with  some  ladies  keeping  each  other  awake 
"  from  spite,"  as  though  not  to  sleep  in  church  were 
an  obvious  hardship  ;  and  yet  later  he  calmly  passes 
the  time  of  service,  looking  about  him,  with  a  per- 
spective glass,  on  all  the  pretty  women.  His  favorite 
ejaculation,  "  Lord  1"  occurs  but  once  that  I  have 
observed  in  1660,  never  in  '61,  twice  in  '62,  and  at 
least  five  times  in  '63  ;  after  which  the  "  Lords"  may 
be  said  to  pullulate  like  herrings,  with  here  and  there 
a  soHtary  "  damned,"  as  it  were  a  whale  among  the 


304  SAMUEL   PEPYS. 

shoal.  He  and  his  wife,  once  filled  with  dudgeon  oy 
some  innocent  freedoms  at  a  marriage,  are  soon  con- 
tent to  go  pleasuring  with  my  Lord  Brouncker's  mis- 
tress, who  was  not  even,  by  his  own  account,  the 
most  discreet  of  mistresses.  Tag,  rag,  and  bobtail, 
dancing,  singing,  and  drinking,  become  his  natural 
element ;  actors  and  actresses  and  drunken,  roaring 
courtiers  are  to  be  found  in  his  society  ;  until  the  man 
grew  so  involved  with  Saturnalian  manners  and  com- 
panions that  he  was  shot  almost  unconsciously  into 
the  grand  domestic  crash  of  1668, 

That  was  the  legitimate  issue  and  punishment  of 
years  of  staggering  walk  and  conversation.  The  man 
who  has  smoked  his  pipe  for  half  a  century  in  a  pow- 
der magazine  finds  himself  at  last  the  author  and  the 
victim  of  a  hideous  disaster.  So  with  our  pleasant- 
minded  Pepys  and  his  peccadilloes.  All  of  a  sudden, 
as  he  still  trips  dexterously  enough  among  the  dangers 
of  a  double-faced  career,  thinking  no  great  evil,  hum- 
ming to  himself  the  trillo,  Fate  takes  the  further  con- 
duct of  that  matter  from  his  hands,  and  brings  him 
face  to  face  with  the  consequences  of  his  acts.  For  a 
man  still,  after  so  many  years,  the  lover,  although  not 
the  constant  lover,  of  his  wife, — for  a  man,  besides, 
who  was  so  greatly  careful  of  appearances, — the  reve- 
lation of  his  infidelities  was  a  crushing  blow.  The 
tears  that  he  shed,  the  indignities  that  he  endured, 
are  not  to  be  measured.  A  vulgar  woman,  and  now 
justly  incensed,  Mrs.  Pepys  spared  him  no  detail  of 
suffering.      She  was  violent,  threatening  him  with  the 


SAMUEL  PEPYS.  305 

tongs  ;  she  -was  careless  of  his  honor,  driving  him  to 
insult  the  mistress  whom  she  had  driven  him  to  betray 
and  to  discard  ;  worst  of  all,  she  was  hopelessly  incon- 
sequent, in  word  and  thought  and  deed,  now  lulling 
him  with  reconciliations,  and  anon  flaming  forth  again 
with  the  original  anger.  Pepys  had  not  used  his  wife 
well  ;  he  had  wearied  her  with  jealousies,  even  while 
himself  unfaithful  ;  he  had  grudged  her  clothes  and 
pleasures,  while  lavishing  both  upon  himself ;  he  had 
abused  her  in  words  ;  he  had  bent  his  fist  at  her  in 
anger  ;  he  had  once  blacked  her  eye  ;  and  it  is  one 
of  the  oddest  particulars  in  that  odd  Diary  of  his,  that, 
while  the  injury  is  referred  to  once  in  passing,  there  is 
no  hint  as  to  the  occasion  or  the  manner  of  the  blow. 
But  now,  when  he  is  in  the  wrong,  nothing  can  ex- 
ceed the  long-suffering  affection  of  this  impatient  hus- 
band. While  he  was  still  sinning  and  still  undiscov- 
ered, he  seems  not  to  have  known  a  touch  of  penitence 
stronger  than  what  might  lead  him  to  take  his  wife  to 
the  theatre,  or  for  an  airing,  or  to  give  her  a  new 
dress,  by  way  of  compensation.  Once  found  out, 
however,  and  he  seems  to  himself  to  have  lost  all  claim 
to  decent  usage.  It  is  perhaps  the  strongest  instance 
of  his  externality.  His  wife  may  do  what  she  pleases, 
and  though  he  may  groan,  it  will  never  occur  to  him 
to  blame  her  ;  he  has  no  weapon  left  but  tears  and  the 
most  abject  submission.  We  should  perhaps  have  re- 
spected him  more  had  he  not  given  way  so  utterly — 
above  all,  had  he  refused  to  write,  under  his  wife's 
dictation,  an  insulting  letter  to  his  unhappy  fellow- 


3o6  SAMUEL   PEPYS. 

culprit,  Miss  Willet ;  but  somehow  I  believe  we  like 
him  better  as  he  was. 

The  death  of  his  wife,  following  so  shortly  after, 
must  have  stamped  the  impression  of  this  episode  upon 
his  mind.  For  the  remaining  years  of  his  long  life 
we  have  no  Diary  to  help  us,  and  we  have  seen  al- 
ready how  little  stress  is  to  be  laid  upon  the  tenor  of 
his  correspondence  ;  but  what  with  the  recollection 
of  the  catastrophe  of  his  married  life,  what  with  the 
natural  influence  of  his  advancing  years  and  reputa- 
tion, it  seems  not  unlikely  that  the  period  of  gallantry 
was  at  an  end  for  Pepys  ;  and  it  is  beyond  a  doubt 
that  he  sat  down  at  last  to  an  honored  and  agreeable 
old  age  among  his  books  and  music,  the  correspondent 
of  Sir  Isaac  Newton,  and,  in  one  instance  at  least,  the 
poetical  counsellor  of  Dryden.  Through  all  this 
period,  that  Diary  which  contained  the  secret  memoirs 
of  his  life,  with  all  its  inconsistencies  and  escapades, 
had  been  religiously  preserved  ;  nor,  when  he  came  to 
die,  does  he  appear  to  have  provided  for  its  destruc- 
tion. So  we  may  conceive  him  faithful  to  the  end  to 
all  his  dear  and  early  memories  ;  still  mindful  of 
Mrs.  Hely  in  the  woods  at  Epsom  ;  still  lighting  at 
Islington  for  a  cup  of  kindness  to  the  dead  ;  still,  if 
he  heard  again  that  air  that  once  so  much  disturbed 
him,  thrilling  at  the  recollection  of  the  love  that  bound 
him  to  his  wife. 


JOHN     KNOX     AND     HIS     RELATIONS    TO 
WOMEN. 

I. — The  Controversy  about  Female  Rule. 

When  first  the  idea  became  widely  spread  among 
men  that  the  Word  of  God,  instead  of  being  truly  the 
foundation  of  all  existing  institutions,  was  rather  a 
stone  which  the  builders  had  rejected,  it  was  but 
natural  that  the  consequent  havoc  among  received 
opinions  should  be  accompanied  by  the  generation  of 
many  new  and  lively  hopes  for  the  future.  Some- 
what as  in  the  early  days  of  the  French  Revolution, 
men  must  have  looked  for  an  immediate  and  uni- 
versal improvement  in  their  condition.  Christianity, 
up  to  that  time,  had  been  somewhat  of  a  failure  politi- 
cally. The  reason  was  now  obvious,  the  capital  flaw 
was  detected,  the  sickness  of  the  body  politic  traced  at 
last  to  its  efficient  cause.  It  was  only  necessary  to 
put  the  Bible  thoroughly  into  practice  to  set  them- 
selves strenuously  to  realize  in  life  the  Holy  Common- 
wealth, and  all  abuses  and  iniquities  would  surely 
pass  away.  Thus,  in  a  pageant  played  at  Geneva  in 
the  year  1523,  the  world  was  represented  as  a  sick 
man  at  the  end  of  his  wits  for  help,  to  whom  his  doc- 
tor recommends  Lutheran  specifics.  * 

>  Gaberel's  Ef^Use  dc  Ccuh'e,  i.  88. 


3o8  JOHN  KXOX 

The  Reformers  themselves  had  set  their  affections 
in  a  different  world,  and  professed  to  look  for  the 
finished  result  of  their  endeavors  on  the  other  side  of 
death.  They  took  no  interest  in  politics  as  such  ; 
they  even  condemned  political  action  as  Antichiistian  : 
notably,  Luther  in  the  case  of  the  Peasants'  War. 
And  yet,  as  the  purely  religious  question  was  insepa- 
rably complicated  with  political  difficulties,  and  they 
had  to  make  opposition,  from  day  to  day,  against 
principalities  and  powers,  they  were  led,  one  after  an- 
other, and  again  and  again,  to  leave  the  sphere  which 
was  more  strictly  their  own,  and  meddle,  for  good 
and  evil,  with  the  affairs  of  State.  Not  much  was  to 
be  expected  from  interference  in  such  a  spirit. 
Whenever  a  minister  found  himself  galled  or  hindered, 
he  would  be  inclined  to  suppose  some  contravention 
of  the  Bible.  Whenever  Christian  liberty  was  restrained 
(and  Christian  liberty  for  each  individual  would  be 
about  coextensive  with  what  he  wished  to  do),  it  was 
obvious  that  the  State  was  Antichristian.  The  great 
thing,  and  the  one  thing,  was  to  push  the  Gospel  and 
the  Reformers'  own  interpretation  of  it.  Whatever 
helped  was  good  ;  whatever  hindered  was  evil  ;  and  if 
this  simple  classification  proved  inapplicable  over  the 
whole  field,  it  was  no  business  of  his  to  stop  and  rec- 
oncile incongruities.  He  had  more  pressing  concerns 
on  hand  ;  he  had  to  save  souls  ;  he  had  to  be  about 
his  Father's  business.  This  short-sighted  view  resulted 
in  a  doctrine  that  was  actually  Jesuitical  in  application. 
They  had   no  serituis   ideas   upon   politics,  and  they 


AND  HIS  RELATIONS    TO    WOMEN.       309 

were  ready,  nay,  they  seemed  almost  bound,  to  adopt 
and  support  whichever  ensured  for  the  moment  the 
greatest  benefit  to  the  souls  of  their  fellow-men.  They 
were  dishonest  in  all  sincerity.  Thus  Labitte,  in  the 
introduction  to  a  book  '  in  which  he  exposes  the 
hypocritical  democracy  of  the  Catholics  under  the 
League,  steps  aside  for  a  moment  to  stigmatize  the 
hypocritical  democracy  of  the  Protestants.  And  no- 
where was  this  expediency  in  political  questions  more 
apparent  than  about  the  question  of  female  sovereignty. 
So  much  was  this  the  case  that  one  James  Thomasius, 
of  Leipsic,  wrote  a  little  paper  ^  about  the  religious 
partialities  of  those  who  took  part  in  the  controversy, 
in  which  some  of  these  learned  disputants  cut  a  very 
sorry  figure. 

Now  Knox  has  been  from  the  first  a  man  well 
hated  ;  and  it  is  somewhat  characteristic  of  his  luck 
that  he  figures  here  in  the  very  forefront  of  the  list  of 
partial  scribes  who  trimmed  their  doctrine  with  the 
wind  in  all  good  conscience,  and  were  political  weather- 
cocks out  of  conviction.  Not  only  has  Thomasius 
mentioned  him,  but  Bayle  has  taken  the  hint  from 
Thomasius,  and  dedicated  a  long  note  to  the  matter 
at  the  end  of  his  article  on  the  Scotch  Reformer. 
This  is  a  little  less  than  fair.  If  any  one  among  the 
evangelists  of  that  period  showed  more  serious  politi- 
cal sense  than  another,  it  was  assuredly  Knox  ;  and 

1  La  Democratie  chez  les  Pr^dicaieurs  de  la  Ligue. 
'  Hisforia  affectjium  se  imtniscentUim  controversite  de  gyncecocratia, 
It  is  in  his  colleGted  prefaces,  Leipsic,  1683. 


3IO  JOHN  KNOX 

even  in  this  very  matter  of  female  rule,  although  I  do 
not  suppose  any  one  nowadays  will  feel  inclined  to 
endorse  his  sentiments,  I  confess  I  can  make  great 
allowance  for  his  conduct.  The  controversy,  besides, 
has  an  interest  of  its  own,  in  view  of  later  controversies. 
John  Knox,  from  1556  to  1559,  was  resident  in 
Geneva,  as  minister,  jointly  with  Goodman,  of  a  little 
church  of  English  refugees.  He  and  his  congregation 
were  banished  from  England  by  one  woman,  ]Mary 
Tudor,  and  proscribed  in  Scotland  by  another,  the 
Regent  Mary  of  Guise.  The  coincidence  was  tempt- 
ing :  here  were  many  abuses  centring  about  one 
abuse  ;  here  was  Christ's  Gospel  persecuted  in  the 
two  kingdoms  by  one  anomalous  power.  He  had 
not  far  to  go  to  find  the  idea  that  female  government 
was  anomalous.  It  was  an  age,  indeed,  in  which 
women,  capable  and  incapable,  played  a  conspicuous 
part  upon  the  stage  of  European  history  ;  and  yet 
their  rule,  whatever  may  have  been  the  opinion  of 
here  and  there  a  wise  man  or  enthusiast,  was  regarded 
as  an  anomaly  by  the  great  bulk  of  their  contempo- 
raries. It  was  defended  as  an  anomaly.  It,  and  all 
that  accompanied  and  sanctioned  it,  was  set  aside  as 
a  single'exception  ;  and  no  one  thought  of  reasoning 
down  from  queens  and  extending  their  privileges  to 
ordinary  women.  Great  ladies,  as  we  know,  had  the 
privilege  of  entering  into  monasteries  and  cloisters, 
otherwise  forbidden  to  their  sex.  As  with  one  thing, 
so  with  another.  Thus,  ^Margaret  of  Navarre  wrote 
books  with  great  acclamation,  and  no  one,  seemingly, 


AND  HIS  RELATIONS    TO    WOMEN.       311 

saw  fit  to  call  her  conduct  in  question  ;  but  Made- 
moiselle da  Gournay,  Montaigne's  adopted  daughter, 
was  in  a  controversy  with  the  world  as  to  whether  a 
woman  might  be  an  author  without  incongruity. 
Thus,  too,  we  have  Theodore  Agrippa  d'Aubigne 
writing  to  his  daughters  about  the  learned  women  of 
his  century,  and  cautioning  them,  in  conclusion,  that 
the  study  of  letters  was  unsuited  to  ladies  of  a  mid- 
dling station,  and  should  be  reserved  for  princesses. ' 
And  once  more,  if  we  desire  to  see  the  same  princi- 
ple carried  to  ludicrous  extreme,  we  shall  find  that 
Reverend  Father  in  God  the  Abbot  of  Brantome, 
claiming,  on  the  authority  of  some  lord  of  his  ac- 
quaintance, a  privilege,  or  rather  a  duty,  of  free  love 
for  great  princesses,  and  carefully  excluding  other 
ladies  from  the  same  gallant  dispensation.'^  One  sees 
the  spirit  in  which  these  immunities  were  granted  ; 
and  how  they  were  but  the  natural  consequence  of 
that  awe  for  courts  and  kings  that  made  the  last  writer 
tell  us,  with  simple  wonder,  how  Catherine  de  INIedici 
would  "laugh  her  fill  just  like  another"  over  the 
humors  of  pantaloons  and  zanies.  And  such  servility 
was,  of  all  things,  what  would  touch  most  nearly  the 
republican  spirit  of  Knox.  It  was  not  difficult  for 
him  to  set  aside  this  weak  scruple  of  loyalty.  The 
lantern  of  his  analysis  did  not  always  shine  with  a 
very  serviceable  light  ;  but  he  had  the  virtue,  at  least, 
to  carry  ft  into  many  places  of  fictitious  holiness,  and 
was  not  abashed  by  the  tinsel  divinity  that   hedged 

'  CEnvrcs  de  d' Auiignc,  i.  449.  -  Dames  Illustres,  pp.  358-360, 


312  JOHN  KNOX 

kings  and  queens  from  his  contemporaries.  And  so 
he  could  put  the  proposition  in  the  form  already  men- 
tioned :  there  was  Christ's  Gospel  persecuted  in  the 
two  kingdoms  by  one  anomalous  power  ;  plainly, 
then,  the  "  regiment  of  women"  was  Antichristian. 
Early  in  1558  he  communicated  this  discovery  to  the 
world,  by  publishing  at  Geneva  his  notorious  book  — 
The  First  Blast  0/  the  Trumpet  against  the  Monstrous 
Regiment  of  Women. ' 

As  a  whole,  it  is  a  dull  performance  ;  but  the 
preface,  as  is  usual  with  Knox,  is  both  interesting  and 
morally  fine.  Knox  was  not  one  of  those  who  are 
humble  in  the  hour  of  triumph  ;  he  was  aggressive 
even  when  things  were  at  their  worst.  He  had  a 
grim  reliance  in  himself,  or  rather  in  his  mission  ;  if 
he  were  not  sure  that  he  was  a  great  man,  he  was  at 
least  sure  that  he  was  one  set  apart  to  do  great  things. 
And  he  judged  simply  that  whatever  passed  in  his 
mind,  whatever  moved  him  to  flee  from  persecution 
instead  of  constantly  facing  it  out,  or,  as  here,  to 
publish  and  withhold  his  name  from  the  title-paa^e  of 
a  critical  work,  would  not  fail  to  be  of  interest,  per- 
haps of  benefit,  to  the  world.  There  may  be  some- 
thing more  finely  sensitive  in  the  modern  humor,  that 
tends  more  and  more  to  withdraw  a  man's  personality 
from  the  lessons  he  inculcates  or  the  cause  that  he 
has  espoused  ;  but  there  is  a  loss  herewith  of  whole- 
some responsibility  ;  and  when  we  find  in  the  works 
of  Knox,  as  in  the  Epistles  of  Paul,  the  man   himself 

1  W^orks  of  John  Knox,  iv.  349. 


AND   HIS  RELATIONS    TO    WOMEN.       313 

Standing  nakedly  forward,  courting  and  anticipating 
criticism,  cutting  his  character,  as  it  were,  in  pledge 
for  the  sincerity  of  his  doctrine,  we  had  best  waive  the 
question  of  delicacy,  and  make  our  acknowledgments 
for  a  lesson  of  courage,  not  unnecessary  in  these  days 
of  anonymous  criticism,  and  much  light,  otherwise 
unattainable,  on  the  spirit  in  which  great  movements 
were  initiated  and  carried  forward.  Knox's  personal 
revelations  are  always  interesting  ;  and,  in  the  case  of 
the  "  First  Blast,"  as  I  have  said,  there  is  no  exception 
to  the  rule.  He  begins  by  stating  the  solemn  re- 
sponsibility of  all  who  are  watchmen  over  God's 
flock  ;  and  all  are  watchmen  (he  goes  on  to  explain, 
with  that  fine  breadth  of  spirit  that  characterizes  him 
even  when,  as  here,  he  shows  himself  most  narrow), 
all  are  watchmen  "  whose  eyes  God  doth  open,  and 
whose  conscience  he  pricketh  to  admonish  the  un- 
godly." And  with  the  full  consciousness  of  this 
great  duty  before  him,  he  sets  himself  to  answer  the 
scruples  of  timorous  or  worldly-minded  people. 
How  can  a  man  repent,  he  asks,  unless  the  nature  of 
his  transgression  is  made  plain  to  him  .?  "  And  there- 
fore I  say,"  he  continues,  "  that  of  necessity  it  is  that 
this  monstriferous  empire  of  women  (which  among  all 
enormities  that  this  day  do  abound  upon  the  face  of 
the  whole  earth,  is  most  detestable  and  damnable)  be 
openly  and  plainly  declared  to  the  world,  to  the  end 
that  some  may  repent  and  be  saved. ' '  To  those  who 
think  the  doctrine  useless,  because  it  cannot  be  ex- 
pected  to  amend   those  princes  whom   it  would  dis- 


314  JOHN  KNOX 

possess  if  once  accepted,  he  makes  answer  in  a  strain 
that  shows  him  at  his  greatest.  After  having  instanced 
how  the  rumor  of  Christ's  censures  found  its  way  to 
Herod  in  his  own  court,  "even  so,"  he  continues, 
"  may  the  sound  of  our  weak  trumpet,  by  the  support 
of  some  wind  (blow  it  from  the  south,  or  blow  it  from 
the  north,  it  is  of  no  matter),  come  to  the  ears  of  the 
chief  offenders.  But  whether  it  do  or  not,  yet  dare  we 
not  cease  to  blow  as  God  will  give  strength.  For  we  are 
debtors  to  more  than  to  princes,  to  wit,  to  the  great 
multitude  of  our  brethren,  of  whom,  no  doubt,  a  great 
number  have  heretofore  offended  by  error  and  igno- 
rance. ' ' 

It  is  for  the  multitude,  then,  he  writes  ;  he  does  not 
greatly  hope  that  his  trumpet  will  be  audible  in  palaces, 
or  that  crowned  women  will  submissively  discrown 
themselves  at  his  appeal  ;  what  he  does  hope,  in  plain 
English,  is  to  encourage  and  justify  rebellion  ;  and  we 
shall  see,  before  we  have  done,  that  he  can  put  his 
purpose  into  words  as  roundly  as  I  can  put  it  for  him. 
This  he  sees  to  be  a  matter  of  much  hazard  ;  he  is 
not  "  altogether  so  brutish  and  insensible,  but  that  he 
has  laid  his  account  what  the  finishing  of  the  work 
may  cost."  He  knows  that  he  will  find  many  ad- 
versaries,  since  "  to  the  most  part  of  men,  lawful  and 
godly  appeareth  whatsoever  antiquity  hath  received." 
He  looks  for  opposition,  "  not  only  of  the  ignorant 
multitude,  but  of  the  wise,  politic,  and  quiet  spirits 
of  the  earth.' '  He  will  be  called  foolish,  curious,  de- 
spiteful, and   a  sower  of  sedition  ;  and  one  day,  per- 


AND  HIS  RELATIONS    TO    WOMEN.       315 

haps,  for  all  he  is  now  nameless,  he  may  be  attainted 
of  treason.  Yet  he  has  "  determined  to  obey  God, 
notwithstanding  that  the  world  shall  rage  thereat. ' ' 
Finally,  he  makes  some  excuse  for  the  anonymous 
appearance  of  this  first  instalment  :  it  is  his  purpose 
thrice  to  blow  the  trumpet  in  this  matter,  if  God  so 
permit ;  twice  he  intends  to  do  it  without  name  ;  but 
at  the  last  blast  to  take  the  odium  upon  himself,  that 
all  others  may  be  purged. 

Thus  he  ends  the  preface,  and  enters  upon  his  argu- 
ment with  a  secondary  title  :  "  The  First  Blast  to 
awake  Women  degenerate."  We  are  in  the  land  of 
assertion  without  delay.  That  a  woman  should  bear 
rule,  superiority,  dominion  or  empire  over  any  realm, 
nation,  or  city,  he  tells  us,  is  repugnant  to  nature, 
contumely  to  God,  and  a  subversion  of  good  order. 
Women  are  weak,  frail,  impatient,  feeble,  and  foolish. 
God  has  denied  to  woman  wisdom  to  consider,  or 
providence  to  foresee,  what  is  profitable  to  a  common- 
wealth. Women  have  been  ever  lightly  esteemed  ; 
they  have  been  denied  the  tutory  of  their  own  sons, 
and  subjected  to  the  unquestionable  sway  of  their  hus- 
bands ;  and  surely  it  is  irrational  to  give  the  greater 
where  the  less  has  been  withheld,  and  suffer  a  woman 
to  reign  supreme  over  a  great  kingdom  who  would  be 
allowed  no  authority  by  her  own  fireside.  He  appeals 
to  the  Bible  ;  but  though  he  makes  much  of  the  first 
transgression  and  certain  strong  texts  in  Genesis  and 
Paul's  Epistles,  he  does  not  appeal  with  entire  success. 
The  cases  of  Deborah  and  Huldah  can  be  brought  into 


3i6  JOHiY  KNOX 

no  sort  of  harmonj'  with  his  thesis.  Indeed,  I  may 
say  that,  logically,  he  left  his  bones  there  ;  and  that  it 
is  but  the  phantom  of  an  argument  that  he  parades 
thenceforward  to  the  end.  Well  was  it  for  Knox  that 
he  succeeded  no  better  ;  it  is  under  this  ver\'  am- 
biguity about  Deborah  that  we  shall  find  him  fain  to 
creep  for  shelter  before  he  is  done  with  the  regiment 
of  women.  After  having  thus  exhausted  Scripture, 
and  formulated  its  teaching  in  the  somewhat  blas- 
phemous maxim  that  the  man  is  placed  above  the 
woman,  even  as  God  above  the  angels,  he  goes  on 
triumphantly  to  adduce  the  testimonies  of  Tertullian, 
Augustine,  Ambrose,  Basil,  Chrysostom,  and  the 
Pandects  ;  and  having  gathered  this  little  cloud  of 
witnesses  about  him,  like  pursuivants  about  a  herald, 
he  solemnly  proclaims  all  reigning  women  to  be 
traitoresses  and  rebels  against  God  ;  discharges  all 
men  thenceforward  from  holding  any  office  under  such 
monstrous  regiment,  and  calls  upon  all  the  lieges  with 
one  consent  to  ' '  study  to  repress  the  inordinate  pride 
and  tyramiy'  of  queens.  If  this  is  not  treasonable 
teaching,  one  would  be  glad  to  know  what  is  ;  and 
yet,  as  if  he  feared  he  had  not  made  the  case  plain 
enough  against  himself,  he  goes  on  to  deduce  the 
startling  corollary  that  all  oaths  of  allegiance  must  be 
incontinently  broken.  If  it  was  sin  thus  to  have 
sworn  even  in  ignorance,  it  were  obstinate  sin  to  con- 
tinue to  respect  them  after  fuller  knowledge.  Then 
comes  the  peroration,  in  which  he  cries  aloud  against 
the  cruelties  of  that  cursed  Jezebel  of  England — that 


AND  HIS  RELATIONS    TO    WOMEN.       317 

horrible  monster  Jezebel  of  England  ;  and  after  hav- 
ing predicted  sudden  destruction  to  her  rule  and  to 
the  rule  of  all  crowned  women,  and  warned  all  men 
that  if  they  presume  to  defend  the  same  when  any 
"noble  heart"  shall  be  raised  up  to  vindicate  the 
liberty  of  his  country,  they  shall  not  fail  to  perish 
themselves  in  the  ruin,  he  concludes  with  a  last 
rhetorical  flourish  :  ' '  And  therefore  let  all  men  be 
advertised,  for  the  Trumpet  hath  oxce  blown. 

The  capitals  are  his  own.  In  writing,  he  probably 
felt  the  want  of  some  such  reverberation  of  the  pulpit 
under  strong  hands  as  he  was  wont  to  emphasize  his 
spoken  utterances  withal  ;  there  would  seem  to  him  a 
want  of  passion  in  the  orderly  lines  of  type  ;  and  I 
suppose  we  may  take  the  capitals  as  a  mere  substitute 
for  the  great  voice  with  which  he  would  have  given  it 
forth,  had  we  heard  it  from  his  own  lips.  Indeed,  as 
it  is,  in  this  little  strain  of  rhetoric  about  the  trumpet, 
this  current  allusion  to  the  fall  of  Jericho,  that  alone 
distinguishes  his  bitter  and  hasty  production,  he  was 
probably  right,  according  to  all  artistic  canon,  thus  to 
support  and  accentuate  in  conclusion  the  sustained 
metaphor  of  a  hostile  proclamation.  It  is  curious,  by 
the  way,  to  note  how  favorite  an  image  the  trumpet  was 
with  the  Reformer.  He  returns  to  it  again  and  again  ; 
it  is  the  Alpha  and  Omega  of  his  rhetoric  ;  it  is  to  him 
what  a  ship  is  to  the  stage  sailor  ;  and  one  would  al- 
most fancy  he  had  begun  the  world  as  a  trumpeter's 
apprentice.  The  partiality  is  surely  characteristic. 
All  his  life  lono:  he  was  blowinf?  summonses   before 


3i8  JOHN  KNOX 

various  Jerichos,  some  of  which  fell  duly,  but  not  all. 
Wherever  he  appears  in  history  his  speech  is  loud, 
angry,  and  hostile  ;  there  is  no  peace  in  his  life,  and 
little  tenderness  ;  he  is  always  sounding  hopefully  to 
the  front  for  some  rough  enterprise.  And  as  his  voice 
had  something  of  the  trumpet's  hardness,  it  had  some- 
thing also  of  the  trumpet's  warlike  inspiration.  So 
Randolph,  possibly  fresh  from  the  sound  of  the  Re- 
former's preaching,  writes  of  him  to  Cecil  : — "  Where 
your  honor  exhorteth  us  to  stoutness,  I  assure  you  the 
voice  of  one  man  is  able,  in  an  hour,  to  put  more  life 
in  us  than  six  hundred  trumpets  continually  blustering 
in  our  ears."  ' 

Thus  was  the  proclamation  made.  Nor  was  it  long 
in  wakening  all  the  echoes  of  Europe.  What  success 
might  have  attended  it,  had  the  question  decided  been 
a  purely  abstract  question,  it  is  difficult  to  say.  As  it 
was,  it  was  to  stand  or  fall,  not  by  logic,  but  by  polit- 
ical needs  and  sympathies.  Thus,  in  France,  his  doc- 
trine was  to  have  some  future,  because  Protestants 
suffered  there  under  the  feeble  and  treacherous  regency 
of  Catherine  de  IMedici  ;  and  thus  it  was  to  have  no 
future  anywhere  else,  because  the  Protestant  interest 
was  bound  up  with  the  prosperity  of  Queen  Elizabeth. 
This  stumbling-block  lay  at  the  very  threshold  of  the 
matter  ;  and  Knox,  in  the  text  of  the  "  First  Blast," 
had  set  everybody  the  wrong  example  and  gone  to  the 
ground  himself.  He  finds  occasion  to  regret  "  the 
blood  of  innocent  Lady  Jane  Dudley."     But   Lady 

1  M'Crie's  Life  of  Knox  ^  ii.  41. 


AND   HIS  RELATIONS    TO    WOMEN.       319 

Jane  Dudley,  or  Lady  Jane  Grey,  as  we  call  her,  was 
a  would  be  traitoress  and  rebel  against  God,  to  use 
his  own  expressions.  If,  therefore,  political  and  re- 
ligious sympathy  led  Knox  himself  into  so  grave  a 
partiality,  what  was  he  to  expect  from  his  disciples? 
If  the  trumpet  gave  so  ambiguous  a  sound,  who  could 
heartily  prepare  himself  for  the  battle  ?  The  question 
whether  Lady  Jane  Dudley  was  an  innocent  martyr, 
or  a  traitoress  against  God,  whose  inordinate  pride  and 
tyranny  had  been  effectually  repressed,  was  thus  left 
altogether  in  the  wind  ;  and  it  was  not,  perhaps,  won- 
derful if  many  of  Knox's  readers  concluded  that  all 
right  and  wrong  in  the  matter  turned  upon  the  degree 
of  the  sovereign's  orthodoxy  and  possible  helpfulness 
to  the  Reformation.  He  should  have  been  the  more 
careful  of  such  an  ambiguity  of  meaning,  as  he  must 
have  known  well  the  lukewarm  indifference  and  dis- 
honesty of  his  fellow-reformers  in  political  matters. 
He  had  already,  in  1556  or  1557,  talked  the  matter 
over  with  his  great  master,  Calvin,  in  "  a  private  con- 
versation ;"  and  the  interview'  must  have  been  truly 
distasteful  to  both  parties.  Calvin,  indeed,  went  a  far 
way  with  him  in  theory,  and  owned  that  the  "gov- 
ernment of  women  was  a  deviation  from  the  original 
and  proper  order  of  nature,  to  be  ranked,  no  less  than 
slavery,  among  the  punishments  consequent  upon  the 
fall  of  man."  But,  in  practice,  their  two  roads  sepa- 
rated. For  the  Man  of  Geneva  saw  difficulties  in  the 
way  of  the  Scripture  proof  in  the  cases  of  Deborah  and 

1  Described  by  Calvin  in  a  letter  to  Cecil,  Knox's  Works,  vol.  iv. 


320  JOHN  KNOX 

Huldah,  and  in  the  prophecy  of  Isaiah  that  queens 
should  be  the  nursing  mothers  of  the  Church.  And 
as  the  Bible  was  not  decisive,  he  thought  the  subject 
should  be  let  alone,  because  "  by  custom  and  public 
consent  and  long  practice,  it  has  been  established  that 
realms  and  principalities  may  descend  to  females  by 
hereditary  right,  and  it  would  not  be  lawful  to  unset- 
tle governments  which  are  ordained  by  the  peculiar 
providence  of  God."  I  imagine  Knox's  ears  must 
have  burned  during  this  interview.  Think  of  him 
listening  dutifully  to  all  this — how  it  would  not  do  to 
meddle  with  anointed  kings — how  there  was  a  peculiar 
providence  in  these  great  affairs  ;  and  then  think  of 
his  own  peroration,  and  the  "  noble  heart"  whom  he 
looks  for  "  to  vindicate  the  liberty  of  his  country  ;" 
or  his  answer  to  Queen  Mary,  when  she  asked  him 
who  he  was,  to  interfere  in  the  affairs  of  Scotland  : — 
"  Madam,  a  subject  born  within  the  same  !"  In- 
deed,  the  two  doctors  who  differed  at  this  private  con- 
versation represented,  at  the  moment,  two  principles 
of  enormous  import  in  the  subsequent  history  of  Eu- 
rope. In  Calvin  we  have  represented  that  passive 
obedience,  that  toleration  of  injustice  and  absurdity, 
that  holding  back  of  the  hand  from  political  affairs  as 
from  something  unclean,  which  lost  France,  if  we  are 
to  believe  ]\I.  IMichelet,  for  the  Reformation  ;  a  spirit 
necessarily  fatal  in  the  long  run  to  the  existence  of  any 
sect  that  may  profess  it  ;  a  suicidal  doctrine  that  sur- 
vives among  us  to  this  day  in  narrow  views  of  personal 
duty,  and  the  low  political  morality  of  many  virtuous 


AND  HIS  RELATIONS    TO    WOMEN.       321 

men.  In  Knox,  on  the  other  hand,  we  see  foreshad- 
owed the  whole  Puritan  Revolution  and  the  scaffold  of 
Charles  I. 

There  is  little  doubt  in  my  mind  that  this  interview 
was  what  caused  Knox  to  print  his  book  without  a 
name. '  It  was  a  dangerous  thing  to  contradict  the 
Man  of  Geneva,  and  doubly  so,  surely,  when  one  had 
had  the  advantage  of  correction  from  him  in  a  private 
conversation  ;  and  Knox  had  his  little  flock  of  English 
refugees  to  consider.  If  they  had  fallen  into  bad  odor 
at  Geneva,  where  else  was  there  left  to  flee  to  ?  It 
was  printed,  as  I  said,  in  1558  ;  and,  by  a  singular 
mal-a-propos,  in  that  same  year  Mary  died,  and  Eliza- 
beth succeeded  to  the  throne  of  England.  And  just 
as  the  accession  of  Catholic  Queen  Mary  had  con- 
demned female  rule  in  the  eyes  of  Knox,  the  accession 
of  Protestant  Queen  Elizabeth  justifled  it  in  the  eyes 
of  his  colleagues.  Female  rule  ceases  to  be  an  anom- 
aly, not  because  Elizabeth  can  '*  reply  to  eight  am- 
bassadors in  one  day  in  their  different  languages, "  but 
because  she  represents  for  the  moment  the  political 
future  of  the  Reformation.  The  exiles  troop  back  to 
England  with  songs  of  praise  in  their  mouths.  The 
bright  occidental  star,  of  which  we  have  all  read  in  the 
Preface  to  the  Bible,  has  risen  over  the  darkness  of 
Europe.  There  is  a  thrill  of  hope  through  the  perse- 
cuted  Churches  of  the  Continent.     Calvin  writes  to 


1  It  was  anonymously  published,  but  no  o  le  seems  to  have  been  in 
doubt  about  its  authorship  ;  he  might  as  well  have  set  his  name  to  it,  for 
all  the  good  he  got  by  holding  it  back. 


32  2  JOHN  KNOX 

Cecil,  washing  his  hands  of  Knox  and  his  pohtical 
heresies.  The  sale  of  the  "  First  Blast"  is  prohibited 
in  Geneva  ;  and  along  with  it  the  bold  book  of  Knox's 
colleague,  Goodman — a  book  dear  to  INIilton — where 
female  rule  was  briefly  characterized  as  a  "  monster  in 
nature  and  disorder  among  men."'  Any  who  may 
ever  have  doubted,  or  been  for  a  moment  led  away  by 
Knox  or  Goodman,  or  their  own  wicked  imaginations, 
are  now  more  than  convinced.  They  have  seen  the 
occidental  star.  Aylmer,  with  his  eye  set  greedily  on 
a  possible  bishopric,  and  "  the  better  to  obtain  the 
favor  of  the  new  Queen, ' '  "^  sharpens  his  pen  to  con- 
found Knox  by  logic.  What  need  .-'  He  has  been 
confounded  by  facts.  "  Thus  what  had  been  to  the 
refugees  of  Geneva  as  the  very  word  of  God,  no  sooner 
were  they  back  in  England  than,  behold  !  it  was  the 
word  of  the  devil."  ^ 

Now,  what  of  the  real  sentiments  of  these  loyal  sub- 
jects of  Elizabeth  ?  They  professed  a  holy  horror  for 
Knox's  position  :  let  us  see  if  their  own  would  please 
a  modern  audience  any  better,  or  was,  in  substance, 
greatly  different. 

John  Aylmer,  afterward  Bishop  of  London,  pub- 
lished an  answer  to  Knox,  under  the  title  of  An  Har- 
bour/or Faithful  and  inie  Subjects  against  the  late  Blown 
Blast,    concerning  the   govern?)ient  of  Women.*     And 

1  Knox's  Works,  iv.  358.  *  Strype's  Aylmer,  p.  16. 

'  It  may  interest  the  reader  to  know  that  these  (so  says  Thomasius)  are 
the  "ipsissima  verba  Schlusselburgii." 

*  I  am  indebted  for  a  sight  of  this  book  to  the  kindness  of  Mr.  David 
Laing,  the  editor  of  Kno.\'s  Works. 


AJSTD   HIS  RELATIONS    TO    WOMEX.       323 

certainly  he  was  a  thought  more  acute,  a  thought  less 
precipitate  and  simple,  than  his  adversary.  He  is  not 
to  be  led  away  by  such  captious  terms  as  natural  and 
unnaiiiral.  It  is  obvious  to  him  that  a  woman's  dis- 
ability to  rule  is  not  natural  in  the  same  sense  in  which 
it  is  natural  for  a  stone  to  fall  or  fire  to  burn.  He  is 
doubtful,  on  the  whole,  whether  this  disability  be 
natural  at  all  ;  nay,  when  he  is  laying  it  down  that  a 
woman  should  not  be  a  priest,  he  shows  some  ele- 
mentary conception  of  what  many  of  us  now  hold  to 
be  the  truth  of  the  matter.  "The  bringing-up  of 
w^omen,"  he  says,  "is  commonly  such"  that  they 
cannot  have  the  necessary  qualifications,  ' '  for  they  are 
not  brought  up  in  learning  in  schools,  nor  trained  in 
disputation."  And  even  so,  he  can  ask,  "  Are  there 
not  in  England  women,  think  you,  that  for  learning 
and  wisdom  could  tell  their  household  and  neighbors 
as  good  a  tale  as  any  Sir  John  there  V '  For  all  that, 
his  advocacy  is  weak.  If  women's  rule  is  not  unnat- 
ural in  a  sense  preclusive  of  its  very  existence,  it  is 
neither  so  convenient  nor  so  profitable  as  the  govern- 
ment of  men.  He  holds  England  to  be  specially  suit- 
able for  the  government  of  women,  because  there  the 
governor  is  more  limited  and  restrained  by  the  other 
members  of  the  constitution  than  in  other  places  ;  and 
this  argument  has  kept  his  book  from  being  altogether 
forgotten.  It  is  only  in  hereditary  monarchies  that  he 
will  offer  any  defence  of  the  anomaly.  ' '  If  rulers 
were  to  be  chosen  by  lot  or  suffrage,  he  would  not  that 
anv  women   should  stand  in  the  election,  but  men 


324  JOHN  KNOX 

only.  "  The  law  of  succession  of  crowns  was  a  law  to 
him,  in  the  same  sense  as  the  law  of  evolution  is  a  law 
to  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer  ;  and  the  one  and  the  other 
counsels  his  readers,  in  a  spirit  suggestively  alike,  not 
to  kick  against  the  pricks  or  seek  to  be  more  wise  than 
He  who  made  them. '  If  God  has  put  a  female  child 
into  the  direct  line  of  inheritance,  it  is  God's  affair. 
His  strength  will  be  perfected  in  her  weakness.  He 
makes  the  Creator  address  the  objectors  in  this  not  very 
flattering  vein  : — "  I,  that  could  make  Daniel,  a  suck- 
ing babe,  to  judge  better  than  the  wisest  lawyers  ;  a 
brute  beast  to  reprehend  the  folly  of  a  prophet  ;  and 
poor  fishers  to  confound  the  great  clerks  of  the  world 
— cannot  I  make  a  woman  to  be  a  good  ruler  over 
you  .?"  This  is  the  last  word  of  his  reasoning.  Al- 
though he  was  not  altogether  without  Puritanic  leaven, 
shown  particularly  in  what  he  says  of  the  incomes  of 
Bishops,  yet  it  was  rather  loyalty  to  the  old  order  of 
things  than  any  generous  belief  in  the  capacity  of 
women,  that  raised  up  for  them  this  clerical  champion. 
His  courtly  spirit  contrasts  singularly  with  the  rude, 
bracing  republicanism  of  Knox.  "  Thy  knee  shall 
bow,"  he  says,  "thy  cap  shall  off,  thy  tongue  shall 
speak  reverently  of  thy  sovereign."  For  himself,  his 
tongue  is  even  more  than  reverent.  Nothing  can  stay 
the  issue  of  his  eloquent  adulation.  Again  and  again, 
"  the  remembrance  of  Elizabeth's  virtues"  carries  him 
away  ;  and  he  has  to  hark  back  again  to  find  the  scent 
of   his    argument.      He   is    repressing   his    vehement 

'  Social  Statics,  p.  64,  etc. 


AND   HIS  RELATIONS    TO    WOMEN.       325 

adoration  throughout,  until,  when  the  end  comes,  and 
he  feels  his  business  at  an  end,  he  can  indulge  him- 
self to  his  heart's  content  in  indiscriminate  laudation 
of  his  royal  mistress.  It  is  humorous  to  think  that 
this  illustrious  lady,  whom  he  here  praises,  among 
many  other  excellences,  for  the  simplicity  of  her  attire 
and  the  "marvellous  meekness  of  her  stomach," 
threatened  him,  years  after,  in  no  very  meek  terms, 
for  a  sermon  against  female  vanity  in  dress,  which  she 
held  as  a  reflection  on  herself. ' 

Whatever  was  wanting  here  in  respect  for  women 
generally,  there  was  no  want  of  respect  for  the  Queen  ; 
and  one  cannot  very  greatly  wonder  if  these  devoted 
servants  looked  askance,  not  upon  Knox  only,  but  on 
his  little  flock,  as  they  came  back  to  England  tainted 
with  disloyal  doctrine.  For  them,  as  for  him,  the  oc- 
cidental star  rose  somewhat  red  and  angry.  As  for 
poor  Knox,  his  position  was  the  saddest  of  all.  For 
the  juncture  seemed  to  him  of  the  highest  importance  ; 
it  was  the  nick  of  time,  the  flood-water  of  opportu- 
nity. Not  only  was  there  an  opening  for  him  in  Scot- 
land, a  smouldering  brand  of  civil  liberty  and  religious 
enthusiasm  which  it  should  be  for  him  to  kindle  into 
flame  with  his  powerful  breath  ;  but  he  had  his  eye 
seemingly  on  an  object  of  even  higher  worth.  For 
now,  when  religious  sympathy  ran  so  high  that  it 
could  be  set  against  national  aversion,  he  wished  to 
begin  the  fusion  together  of  England  and  Scotland, 
and   to  begin  it  at  the  sore  place.     If  once  the  open 

•  Hallam's  Const.  Hist,  of  England.,  i.  225,  note  ". 


326  JOHN'  KNOX 

wound  were  closed  at  the  Border,  the  work  would  be 
half  done.  Ministers  placed  at  Berwick  and  such 
places  might  seek  their  converts  equally  on  either  side 
of  the  march  ;  old  enemies  would  sit  together  to  hear 
the  gospel  of  peace,  and  forget  the  inherited  jealousies 
of  many  generations  in  the  enthusiasm  of  a  common 
faith  ;  or — let  us  say  better — a  common  heresy.  For 
people  are  not  most  conscious  of  brotherhood  when 
they  continue  languidly  together  in  one  creed,  but 
when,  with  some  doubt,  with  some  danger  perhaps,  and 
certainly  not  without  some  reluctance,  they  violently 
break  with  the  tradition  of  the  past,  and  go  forth  from 
the  sanctuary  of  their  fathers  to  worship  under  the 
bare  heaven.  A  new  creed,  like  a  new  country,  is  an 
unhomely  place  of  sojourn  ;  but  it  makes  men  lean 
on  one  another  and  join  hands.  It  was  on  this  that 
Knox  relied  to  begin  the  union  of  the  English  and 
the  Scotch.  And  he  had,  perhaps,  better  means  of 
judging  than  any  even  of  his  contemporaries.  He 
knew  the  temper  of  both  nations  ;  and  already  during 
his  two  years'  chaplaincy  at  Berwick,  he  had  seen  his 
scheme  put  to  the  proof.  But  whether  practicable  or 
not,  the  proposal  does  him  much  honor.  That  he 
should  thus  have  sought  to  make  a  love-match  of  it 
between  the  two  peoples,  and  tried  to  win  their  incli- 
nation toward  a  union  instead  of  simply  transferring 
them,  like  so  many  sheep,  by  a  marriage,  or  testa- 
ment, or  private  treaty,  is  thoroughly  characteristic  of 
what  is  best  in  the  man.  Nor  was  this  all.  He  had, 
besides,  to  assure  himself  of  English  support,  secret  or 


AND    HIS  RELATIONS    TO    WOMEN.       327 

avowed,  for  the  reformation  party  in  Scotland  ;  a  deli- 
cate affair,  trenching  upon  treason.  And  so  he  had 
plenty  to  say  to  Cecil,  plenty  that  he  did  not  care  to 
"  commit  to  paper  neither  yet  to  the  knowledge  of 
many."  But  his  miserable  publication  had  shut  the 
doors  of  England  in  his  face.  Summoned  to  Edin- 
burgh by  the  confederate  lords,  he  waited  at  Dieppe, 
anxiously  praying  for  leave  to  journey  through  Eng- 
land. The  most  dispiriting  tidings  reach  him.  His 
messengers,  coming  from  so  obnoxious  a  quarter,  nar- 
rowly escape  imprisonment.  His  old  congregation 
are  coldly  received,  and  even  begin  to  look  back  again 
to  their  place  of  exile  with  regret.  "  My  First  Blast," 
he  writes  ruefully,  * '  has  blown  from  me  all  my  friends 
of  England."  And  then  he  adds,  with  a  snarl,  "  The 
Second  Blast,  I  fear,  shall  sound  somewhat  more 
sharp,  except  men  be  more  moderate  than  I  hear  they 
are."  '  But  the  threat  is  empty  ;  there  will  never  be 
a  second  blast — he  has  had  enough  of  that  trumpet. 
Nay,  he  begins  to  feel  uneasily  that,  unless  he  is  to  be 
rendered  useless  for  the  rest  of  his  life,  unless  he  is  to 
lose  his  right  arm  and  go  about  his  great  work  maimed 
and  impotent,  he  must  find  some  way  of  making  his 
peace  with  England  and  the  indignant  Queen.  The 
letter  just  quoted  was  written  on  the  6th  of  April 
1559  ;  and  on  the  loth,  after  he  had  cooled  his  heels 
for  four  days  more  about  the  streets  of  Dieppe,  he 
gave  in  altogether,  and  writes  a  letter  of  capitulation 

'  Knox  to  Mrs.  Locke,  6th  April  1559.     Works,  vi.  14. 


328  JOHN  KNOX 

to  Cecil.  In  this  letter, '  which  he  kept  back  until  the 
22d,  still  hoping  that  things  would  come  right  of 
themselves,  he  censures  the  great  secretary  for  having 
"  followed  the  world  in  the  way  of  perdition,"  char- 
acterizes him  as  "  worthy  of  hell,"  and  threatens  him, 
if  he  be  not  found  simple,  sincere,  and  fervent  in  the 
cause  of  Christ's  gospel,  that  he  shall  "  taste  of  the 
same  cup  that  politic  heads  have  drunken  in  before 
him."  This  is  all,  I  take  it,  out  of  respect  for  the 
Reformer's  own  position  ;  if  he  is  going  to  be  humili- 
ated, let  others  be  humiliated  first  ;  like  a  child  who 
will  not  take  his  medicine  until  he  has  made  his  nurse 
and  his  mother  drink  of  it  before  him.  "  But  I  have, 
say  you,  written  a  treasonable  book  against  the  regi- 
ment and  empire  of  women.  .  .  .  The  writing  or 
that  book  I  will  not  deny  ;  but  to  prove  it  treasonable 
I  think  it  shall  be  hard.  ...  It  is  hinted  that  my 
book  shall  be  written  against.  If  so  be,  sir,  I  greatly 
doubt  they  shall  rather  hurt  nor  (than)  mend  the  mat- 
ter."  And  here  come  the  terms  of  capitulation  ;  for 
he  does  not  surrender  unconditionally,  even  in  this 
sore  strait  :  "And  yet  if  any,"  he  goes  on,  "think 
me  enemy  to  the  person,  or  yet  to  the  regiment,  of 
her  whom  God  hath  now  promoted,  they  are  utterly 
deceived  in  me,  for  the  7niractilous  work  of  God,  com- 
furiwg  His  afflicted  by  rneans  of  an  infirm  vessel,  I  do 
achiowledge,  atid  the  power  of  His  most  potent  hand  I 
will  obey.  More  plainly  to  speak,  if  Queen  Elizabeth 
shall  confess,  that  the  extraordinary  dispensation  of  God' s 

'  Knox  to  Sir  William  Cecil,  loth  April  1559.     Works,  ii.  16,  or  vi.  15. 


/l^'D   J/IS  RELATIONS    TO    WOMEN.       329 

great  mercy  ?nakelh  that  lawful  unto  her  which  both  na- 
ture and  God' s  law  do  deny  to  all  women,  then  shall 
none  in  England  be  more  willing  to  maintain  her  law- 
ful authority  than  I  shall  be.  But  if  (God's  wondrous 
work  set  aside)  she  ground  (as  God  forbid)  the  just- 
ness of  her  title  upon  consuetude,  laws,  or  ordinances 
of  men,  then" — Then  Knox  will  denounce  her? 
Not  so  ;  he  is  more  politic  nowadays  —  then,  he 
"  greatly  fears"  that  her  ingratitude  to  God  will  not 
go  long  without  punishment. 

His  letter  to  Elizabeth,  written  some  few  months 
later,  was  a  mere  amplification  of  the  sentences  quoted 
above.  She  must  base  her  title  entirely  upon  the  ex- 
traordinary providence  of  God  ;  but  if  she  does  this, 
"  if  thus,  in  God's  presence,  she  humbles  herself,  so 
will  he  with  tongue  and  pen  justify  her  authority,  as 
the  Holy  Ghost  hath  justified  the  same  in  Deborah, 
that  blessed  mother  in  Israel."'  And  so,  you  see, 
his  consistency  is  preserved  ;  he  is  merely  applying 
the  doctrine  of  the  "First  Blast."  The  argument 
goes  thus  :  The  regiment  of  women  is,  as  before  noted 
in  our  work,  repugnant  to  nature,  contumely  to  God, 
and  a  subversion  of  good  order.  It  has  nevertheless 
pleased  God  to  raise  up,  as  exceptions  to  this  law, 
first  Deborah,  and  afterward  Elizabeth  Tudor — whose 
regiment  we  shall  proceed  to  celebrate. 

There  is  no  evidence  as  to  how  the  Reformer's  ex- 
planations were  received,  and  indeed  it  is  most  prob- 
able that  the  letter  was  never  shown  to  Elizabeth  at 

1  Knox  to  Queen  Elizabeth,  July  20th,  1559.     Works,  vi   47,  or  ii.  26. 


330  JOHN  ivNOX 

all.  For  it  was  sent  under  cover  of  another  to  Cecil, 
and  as  it  was  not  of  a  very  courtly  conception  through- 
out, and  was,  of  all  things,  what  would  most  excite 
the  Queen's  uneasy  jealousy  about  her  title,  it  is  like 
enough  that  the  secretary  exercised  his  discretion  (he 
had  Knox's  leave  in  this  case,  and  did  not  always 
wait  for  that,  it  is  reputed)  to  put  the  letter  harmlessly 
away  beside  other  valueless  or  unpresentable  State 
Papers.  I  wonder  very  much  if  he  did  the  same  with 
another,^  written  two  years  later,  after  Mary  had  come 
into  Scotland,  in  which  Knox  almost  seeks  to  make 
Elizabeth  an  accomplice  with  him  in  the  matter  of  the 
"  First  Blast."  The  Queen  of  Scotland  is  going  to 
have  that  work  refuted,  he  tells  her  ;  and  ' '  though  it 
were  but  foolishness  in  him  to  prescribe  unto  her 
Majesty  what  is  to  be  done,"  he  would  yet  remind  her 
that  Mary  is  neither  so  much  alarmed  about  her  own 
security,  nor  so  generously  interested  in  Elizabeth's, 
"that  she  would  take  such  pains,  unless  her  crafty 
counsel  in  so  doing  shot  at  a  further  mark. "  There  is 
something  really  ingenious  in  this  letter  ;  it  showed 
Knox  in  the  double  capacity  of  the  author  of  the 
"  First  Blast"  and  the  faithful  friend  of  Elizabeth  ; 
and  he  combines  them  there  so  naturally,  that  one 
would  scarcely  imagine  the  two  to  be  incongruous. 

Twenty  days  later  he  was  defending  his  intemperate 
publication  to  another  queen — his  own  queen,  IMary 
Stuart.  This  was  on  the  first  of  those  three  interviews 
which  he  has  preserved  for  us  with  so  much  dramatic 

1  Knox  to  0"^en  Elizabeth,  August  6th,  1561.     Works,  vi.  126. 


AND  HIS  RELATIONS    TO    WOMEN.       331 

vigor  in  the  picturesque  pages  of  his  history.  After 
he  had  avowed  the  authorship  in  his  usual  haughty 
style,  Mary  asked:  "You  think,  then,  that  I  have 
no  just  authority?"  The  question  was  evaded. 
"Please  your  Majesty,"  he  answered,  "  that  learned 
men  in  all  ages  have  had  their  judgments  free,  and 
most  commonly  disagreeing  from  the  common  judg- 
ment of  the  world  ;  such  also  have  they  published  by 
pen  and  tongue  ;  and  yet  notwithstanding  they  them- 
selves have  lived  in  the  common  society  with  others, 
and  have  borne  patiently  with  the  errors  and  imperfec- 
tions which  they  could  not  amend."  Thus  did 
"  Plato  the  philosopher  :"  thus  will  do  John  Knox. 
"  I  have  communicated  my  judgment  to  the  world  : 
if  the  realm  finds  no  inconvenience  from  the  regiment 
of  a  woman,  that  which  they  approve,  shall  I  not 
further  disallow  than  within  my  own  breast ;  but  shall 
be  as  well  content  to  live  under  your  Grace,  as  Paul 
was  to  live,  under  Nero.  And  my  hope  is,  that  so 
long  as  ye  defile  not  your  hands  with  the  blood  of 
the  saints  of  God,  neither  I  nor  my  book  shall  hurt 
either  you  or  your  authority."  All  this  is  admirable 
in  wisdom  and  moderation,  and,  except  that  he  might 
have  hit  upon  a  comparison  less  offensive  than  that 
with  Paul  and  Nero,  hardly  to  be  bettered.  Having 
said  thus  much,  he  feels  he  needs  say  no  more  ;  and 
so,  when  he  is  further  pressed,  he  closes  that  part  of 
the  discussion  with  an  astonishing  sally.  If  he  has 
been  content  to  let  this  matter  sleep,  he  would  recom- 
mend her  Grace  to  follow  his  example  with  thankful- 


332  JOIIX  KNOX 

ness  of  heart ;  it  is  grimly  to  be  understood  which  of 
them  has  most  to  fear  if  the  question  should  be  re- 
awakened. So  the  talk  wandered  to  other  subjects. 
Only,  when  the  Queen  was  summoned  at  last  to  din- 
ner ("  lor  it  was  afternoon")  Knox  made  his  saluta- 
tion in  this  form  of  words  :  "  I  pray  God,  INIadam, 
that  you  may  be  as  much  blessed  within  the  Com- 
monwealth of  Scotland,  if  it  be  the  pleasure  of  God, 
as  ever  Deborah  was  in  the  Commonwealth  of  Is- 
rael." ^     Deborah  again. 

But  he  was  not  yet  done  with  the  echoes  of  his  own 
"  First  Blast."  In  1 571,  when  he  was  already  near 
his  end,  the  old  controversy  was  taken  up  in  one  of  a 
series  of  anonymous  libels  against  the  Reformer 
affixed,  Sunday  after  Sunday,  to  the  church  door. 
The  dilemma  was  fairly  enough  stated.  Either  his 
doctrine  is  false,  in  which  case  he  is  a  "  false  doctor" 
and  seditious  ;  or,  if  it  be  true,  why  does  he  "  avow 
and  approve  the  contrare,  I  mean  that  regiment  in 
the  Queen  cf  England's  person  ;  which  he  avoweth 
and  approveth,  not  only  praying  for  the  maintenance 
of  her  estate,  but  also  procuring  her  aid  and  support 
against  his  own  native  country.?"  Knox  answered 
the  libel,  as  his  wont  was,  next  Sunday,  from  the  pul- 
pit. He  justified  the  "  First  Blast  "  with  all  the  old 
arrogance  ;  there  is  no  drawing  back  there.  The 
regiment  of  women  is  repugnant  to  nature,  contumely 
to  God,  and  a  subversion  of  good  order,  as  before. 
When  he  prays  for  the  maintenance  of  Elizabeth's  es- 

1  Knox's  Works,,  ii.  27S-2S0. 


AND  HIS  RELATIONS    TO    WOMEN.       Z17> 

tate,  he  is  only  following  the  example  of  those  proph- 
ets of  God  who  warned  and  comforted  the  wicked 
kings  of  Israel  ;  or  of  Jeremiah,  who  bade  the  Jews 
pray  for  the  prosperity  of  Nebuchadnezzar.  As  for 
the  Queen's  aid,  there  is  no  harm  in  that  :  quia  (these 
are  his  own  words)  quia  omnia  miinda  tmrndis  :  because 
to  the  pure  all  things  are  pure.  One  thing,  in  con- 
clusion, he  "  may  not  pretermit  ;"  to  give  the  lie  in 
the  throat  to  his  accuser,  where  he  charges  him  with 
seeking  support  against  his  native  country.  "  What 
I  have  been  to  my  country,"  said  the  old  Reformer, 
"  what  I  have  been  to  my  country,  albeit  this  un- 
thankful age  will  not  know,  yet  the  ages  to  come  will 
be  compelled  to  bear  witness  to  the  truth.  And  thus 
I  cease,  requiring  of  all  men  that  have  anything  to 
oppone  against  me,  that  he  may  (they  may)  do  it  so 
plainly,  as  that  I  may  make  myself  and  all  my  doings 
manifest  to  the  world.  For  to  me  it  seemeth  a  thing 
unreasonable,  that,  in  this  my  decrepit  age,  I  shall 
be  compelled  to  fight  against  shadows,  and  howlets 
that  dare  not  abide  the  light."  ' 

Now,  in  this,  which  may  be  called  his  Last  Blast, 
there  is  as  sharp  speaking  as  any  in  the  "  First  Blast  " 
itself.  He  is  of  the  same  opinion  to  the  end,  you  see, 
although  he  has  been  obliged  to  cloak  and  garble 
that  opinion  for  political  ends.  He  has  been  tack- 
ing indeed,  and  he  has  indeed  been  seeking  the  favor 
of  a  queen  ;  but  what  man   ever  sought  a  queen's 

I  Calderwood's  History  of  the  Kirk  of  Scotland^  edition  of  the  V/odrow 
Society,  iii.  51-54. 


334  JOHN  KNOX 

favor  with  a  more  virtuous  purpose,  or  with  as  Hltle 
courtly  pohcy  ?  The  question  of  consistency  is  del- 
icate, and  must  be  made  plain.  Knox  never  changed 
his  opinion  about  female  rule,  but  lived  to  regret  that 
he  had  published  that  opinion.  Doubtless  he  had 
many  thoughts  so  far  cut  of  the  range  of  public  sym- 
pathy, that  he  could  only  keep  them  to  himself,  and, 
in  his  own  words,  bear  patiently  w'ith  the  errors  and  im- 
perfections that  he  could  not  amend.  For  example,  I 
make  no  doubt  myself  that,  in  his  own  heart,  he  did 
hold  the  shocking  dogma  attributed  to  him  by  more 
than  one  calumniator  ;  and  that,  had  the  time  been 
ripe,  had  there  been  aught  to  gain  by  it,  instead  of  all 
to  lose,  he  would  have  been  the  first  to  assert  that 
Scotland  was  elective  instead  of  hereditary — "  elective 
as  in  the  days  of  paganism,"  as  one  Thevet  says  in 
holy  honor. ^  And  yet,  because  the  time  was  not  ripe, 
I  find  no  hint  of  such  an  idea  in  his  collected  works. 
Now,  the  regiment  of  women  was  another  matter  that 
he  should  have  kept  to  himself ;  right  or  wrong,  his 
opinion  did  not  fit  the  moment  ;  right  or  wrong,  as 
Aylmer  puts  it,  "  the  Blast  was  blown  out  of  season.  " 
And  this  it  was  that  he  began  to  perceive  after  the  ac- 
cession of  Elizabeth  ;  not  that  he  had  been  wrong, 
and  that  female  rule  was  a  good  thing,  for  he  had  said 
from  the  first  that  "  the  felicity  of  some  women  in 
their  empires"  could  not  change  the  law  of  God  and 
the  nature  of  created  things  ;  not  this,  but  that  the 
regiment  of  women  was  one  of  those  imperfections  of 

^  Biiyle's  Historical  Dictionary,  art.  Knox,  remark  G. 


AND  HIS  RELATIONS    TO    WOMEN.       335 

society  which  must  be  borne  with  because  yet  they 
cannot  be  remedied.  The  thing  had  seemed  so  obvi- 
ous to  him,  in  his  sense  of  unspeakable  masculine 
superiority,  and  his  fine  contempt  for  what  is  only 
sanctioned  by  antiquity  and  common  consent,  he  had 
imagined  that,  at  the  first  hint,  men  would  arise  and 
shake  off  the  debasing  tyranny.  He  found  himself 
wrong,  and  he  showed  that  he  could  be  moderate  in 
his  own  fashion,  and  understood  the  spirit  of  true  com- 
promise. He  came  round  to  Calvin's  position,  in 
fact,  but  by  a  different  way.  And  it  derogates  noth- 
ing from  the  merit  of  this  wise  attitude  that  it  was  the 
consequence  of  a  change  of  interest.  We  are  all 
taught  by  interest  ;  and  if  the  interest  be  not  merely 
selfish,  there  is  no  wiser  preceptor  under  heaven,  and 
perhaps  no  sterner. 

Such  is  the  history  of  John  Knox's  connection  with 
the  controversy  about  female  rule.  In  itself,  this  is 
obviously  an  incomplete  study  ;  not  fully  to  be  under- 
stood, without  a  knowledge  of  his  private  relations  with 
the  other  sex,  and  what  he  thought  of  their  position 
in  domestic  life.  This  shall  be  dealt  with  in  another 
paper. 


JOHN     KNOX    AND     HIS     RELATIONS     TO 
V/OMEN. 

II. — Private  Life.    . 

To  those  who  know  Knox  by  hearsay  only,  I  beheve 
the  matter  of  this  paper  will  be  somewhat  astonishing. 
For  the  hard  energy  of  the  man  in  all  pablic  matters 
has  possessed  the  imagination  ot  the  world  ;  he  remains 
for  posterity  in  certain  tradition:}!  phrases,  browbeating 
Queen  Mary,  or  breaking  beautiful  carved  work  in 
abbeys  and  cathedrals,  that  had  long  smoked  them- 
selves out  and  were  no  more  than  sorry  ruins,  while 
he  was  still  quietly  teaching  children  in  a  country 
gentleman's  family.  It  does  not  consist  with  the 
common  acceptation  of  his  character  to  fancy  him 
much  moved,  except  with  anger.  And  yet  the  lan- 
guage of  passion  came  to  his  pen  as  readily,  whether 
it  was  a  passion  of  denunciation  against  some  of  the 
abuses  that  vexed  his  righteous  spirit,  or  of  yearning 
for  the  society  of  an  absent  friend.  He  was  vehement 
in  affection,  as  in  doctrine.  I  will  not  deny  that 
there  may  have  been,  along  with  his  vehemence, 
something  shifty,  and  for  the  moment  only  ;  that,  like 
many  men,  and  many  Scotchmen,  he  saw  the  world 
and    his   own    heart,    not  so  much  under  any   very 


JOHN  KNOX.  337 

Steady,  equable  light,  as  by  extreme  flashes  of  passion, 
true  for  the  moment,  but  not  true  in  the  long  run. 
There  does  seem  to  me  to  be  something  of  this  trace- 
able in  the  Reformer's  utterances  :  precipitation  and 
repentance,  hardy  speech  and  action  somewhat  cir- 
cumspect, a  strong  tendency  to  see  himself  in  a  heroic 
light  and  to  place  a  ready  belief  in  the  disposition  of 
the  moment.  Withal  he  had  considerable  confidence 
in  himself,  and  in  the  uprightness  of  his  own  disci- 
plined emotions,  underlying  much  sincere  aspiration 
after  spiritual  humility.  And  it  is  this  confidence  that 
makes  his  intercourse  with  women  so  interesting  to  a 
modern.  It  would  be  easy,  of  course,  to  make  fun 
of  the  whole  affair,  to  picture  him  strutting  vainglori- 
ously  among  these  inferior  creatures,  or  compare  a  re- 
ligious friendship  in  the  sixteenth  century  with  what 
was  called,  I  think,  a  literary  friendship  in  the  eigh- 
teenth. But  it  is  more  just  and  profitable  to  recog- 
nize what  there  is  sterling  and  human  underneath  all 
his  theoretical  affectations  of  superiority.  Women, 
he  has  said  in  his  "  First  Blast,"  are  "  weak,  frail, 
impatient,  feeble,  and  foolish  ;"  and  yet  it  does  not 
appear  that  he  was  himself  any  less  dependent  than 
other  men  upon  the  sympathy  and  affection  of  these 
weak,  frail,  impatient,  feeble,  and  foolish  creatures  ; 
it  seems  even  as  if  he  had  been  rather  more  dependent 
than  most. 

Of  those  who  are  to  act  influentially  on  their  fel- 
lows, we  should  expect  always  something  large  and 
public  in  their  way  of  life,  something  more  or  less 


SZ^  JOHN  KNOX 

urbane  and  comprehensive  in  their  sentiment  for 
others.  We  should  not  expect  to  see  them  spend 
their  sympathy  in  idyls,  however  beautiful.  We 
should  not  seek  them  among  those  who,  if  they  have 
but  a  wife  to  their  bosom,  ask  no  more  of  woman- 
kind, just  as  they  ask  no  more  of  their  own  sex,  if  they 
can  find  a  friend  or  two  for  their  immediate  need. 
They  will  be  quick  to  feel  all  the  pleasures  of  our  as- 
sociation— not  the  great  ones  alone,  but  all.  They 
will  know  not  love  only,  but  all  those  other  ways  in 
which  man  and  woman  mutually  make  each  other 
happy — by  sympathy,  by  admiration,  by  the  atmos- 
phere they  bear  about  them — down  to  the  mere  im- 
personal pleasure  of  passing  happy  faces  in  the  street. 
For,  through  all  this  gradation,  the  difference  of  sex 
makes  itself  pleasurably  felt.  Down  to  the  most  luke- 
warm courtesies  of  life,  there  is  a  special  chivalry  due 
and  a  special  pleasure  received,  when  the  two  sexes 
are  brought  ever  so  lightly  into  contact.  We  love  our 
mothers  otherwise  than  we  love  our  fathers  ;  a  sister 
is  not  as  a  brother  to  us  ;  and  friendship  between  man 
and  woman,  be  it  never  so  unalloyed  and  innocent,  is 
not  the  same  as  friendship  between  man  and  man. 
Such  friendship  is  not  even  possible  for  all.  To  con- 
join tenderness  for  a  woman  that  is  not  far  short  of 
passionate  with  such  disinterestedness  and  beautiful 
gratuity  of  affection  as  there  is  between  friends  of  the 
same  sex,  requires  no  ordinary  disposition  in  the  man. 
For  either  it  would  presuppose  quite  womanly  delicacy 
of  perception,  and,  as  it  were,  a  curiosity  in  shades  of 


AND  HIS  RELATIONS    TO    WOMEN.       339 

differing  sentiment ;  or  it  would  mean  that  he  had 
accepted  the  large,  simple  divisions  of  society  :  a 
strong  and  positive  spirit  robustly  virtuous,  who  has 
chosen  a  better  part  coarsely,  and  holds  to  it  stead- 
fastly, with  all  its  consequences  of  pain  to  himself  and 
others  ;  as  one  who  should  go  straight  before  him  on 
a  journey,  neither  tempted  by  wayside  flowers  nor  very 
scrupulous  of  small  lives  under  foot.  It  was  in  virtue 
of  this  latter  disposition  that  Knox  was  capable  of 
those  intimacies  with  women  that  embellished  his  life  ; 
and  we  find  him  preserved  for  us  in  old  letters  as  a 
man  of  many  women  friends  ;  a  man  of  some  expan- 
sion toward  the  other  sex  ;  a  man  ever  ready  to  com- 
fort weeping  women,  and  to  weep  along  with  them. 

Of  such  scraps  and  fragments  of  evidence  as  to  his 
private  life  and  more  intimate  thoughts  as  have  sur- 
vived to  us  from  all  the  perils  that  environ  written  pa- 
per, an  astonishingly  large  proportion  is  in  the  shape 
of  letters  to  women  of  his  familiarity.  He  was  twice 
married,  but  that  is  not  greatly  to  the  purpose  ;  for 
the  Turk,  who  thinks  even  more  m.eanly  of  women 
than  John  Knox,  is  none  the  less  given  to  marrying. 
What  is  really  significant  is  quite  apart  from  marriage. 
For  the  man  Knox  was  a  true  man,  and  woman,  the 
ewig-weibliche,  was  as  necessary  to  him,  in  spite  of  all 
low  theories,  as  ever  she  was  to  Goethe.  He  came  to 
her  in  a  certain  halo  of  his  own,  as  the  minister  of 
truth,  just  as  Goethe  came  to  her  in  a  glory  of  art  ; 
he  made  himself  necessary  to  troubled  hearts  and 
minds  exercised    in    the    painful    complications   that 


340  JOHN  KNOX 

naturally  result  from  all  changes  in  the  world's  way  of 
thinking  ;  and  those  whom  he  had  thus  helped  be- 
came dear  to  him,  and  were  made  the  chosen  com- 
panions of  his  leisure  if  they  were  at  hand,  or  encour- 
aged and  comforted  by  letter  if  they  were  afar. 

It  must  not  be  forgotten  that  Knox  had  been  a 
presbyter  of  the  old  Chufch,  and  that  the  many  women 
whom  we  shall  see  gathering  around  him,  as  he  goes 
through  life,  had  probably  been  accustomed,  while 
still  in  the  communion  of  Rome,  to  rely  much  upon 
some  chosen  spiritual  director,  so  that  the  intimacies 
of  which  I  propose  to  offer  some  account,  while  testi- 
fying to  a  good  heart  in  the  Reformer,  testify  also  to  a 
certain  survival  of  the  spirit  of  the  confessional  in  the 
Reformed  Church,  and  are  not  properly  to  be  judged 
without  this  idea.  There  is  no  friendship  so  noble, 
but  it  is  the  product  of  the  time  ;  and  a  world  of  little 
finical  observances,  and  litde  frail  proprieties  and 
fashions  of  the  hour,  go  to  make  or  to  mar,  to  stint 
or  to  perfect,  the  union  of  spirits  the  most  loving  and 
the  most  intolerant  of  such  interference.  The  trick  of 
the  country  and  the  age  steps  in  even  between  the 
mother  and  her  child,  counts  out  their  caresses  upon 
niggardly  fingers,  and  says,  in  the  voice  of  authority, 
that  this  one  thing  shall  be  a  matter  of  confidence  be- 
tween them,  and  this  other  thing  shall  not.  And  thus 
it  is  that  we  must  take  into  reckoning  whatever  tended 
to  modify  the  social  atmosphere  in  which  Knox  and 
his  women  friends  met,  and  loved  and  trusted  each 
other.     To  the  man  who  had  been  their  priest  and  was 


AND   HIS  RELATIONS    TO    WOMEN.       341 

now  their  minister,  women  would  be  able  to  speak 
with  a  confidence  quite  impossible  in  these  latter 
days  ;  the  women  would  be  able  to  speak,  and  the 
man  to  hear.  It  was  a  beaten  road  just  then  ;  and  I 
dare  say  we  should  be  no  less  scandalized  at  their  plain 
speech  than  they,  if  they  could  come  back  to  earth, 
would  be  offended  at  our  waltzes  and  worldly  fashions. 
This,  then,  was  the  footing  on  which  Knox  stood  with 
his  many  women  friends.  The  reader  will  see,  as  he 
goes  on,  how  much  of  warmth,  of  interest,  and  of  that 
happy  mutual  dependence  which  is  the  very  gist  of 
friendship,  he  contrived  to  ingraft  upon  this  somewhat 
dry  relationship  of  penitent  and  confessor. 

It  must  be  understood  that  we  know  nothing  of  his 
intercourse  with  women  (as  indeed  we  know  little  at 
all  about  his  life)  until  he  came  to  Berwick  in  1549, 
when  he  was  already  in  the  forty-fifth  year  of  his  age. 
At  the  same  time  it  is  just  possible  that  some  of  a  lit- 
tle group  at  Edinburgh,  with  whom  he  corresponded 
during  his  last  absence,  may  have  been  friends  of  an 
older  standing.  Certainly  they  were,  of  all  his  female 
correspondents,  the  least  personally  favored.  He  treats 
them  throughout  in  a  comprehensive  sort  of  spirit  that 
must  at  times  have  been  a  little  wounding.  Thus,  he 
remits  one  of  them  to  his  former  letters,  *'  which  I 
trust  be  common  betwixt  you  and  the  rest  of  our  sis- 
ters, for  to  me  ye  are  all  equal  in  Christ. ' '  '  Another 
letter  is  a  gem  in  this  way.  ' '  Albeit, ' '  it  begins,  ' '  al- 
beit I  have  no  particular  matter  to  write  unto  you,  be- 

1  Works,  iv.  244. 


342  JOHN  KNOX 

loved  sister,  yet  I  could  not  refrain  to  write  these  lew 
lines  to  you  in  declaration  of  my  remembrance  of  you. 
True  it  is  that  I  have  many  whom  I  bear  in  equal  re- 
membrance before  God  with  you,  to  whom  at  present 
I  write  nothing,  either  for  that  I  esteem  them  stronger 
than  you,  and  therefore  they  need  the  less  my  rude 
labors,  or  else  because  they  have  not  provoked  me  by 
their  writing  to  recompense  their  remembrance."  ' 
His  "  sisters  in  Edinburgh"  had  evidently  to  "  pro- 
voke' '  his  attention  pretty  constantly  ;  nearly  all  his 
letters  are,  on  the  face  of  them,  answers  to  questions, 
and  the  answers  are  given  with  a  certain  crudity  that  I 
do  not  find  repeated  when  he  writes  to  those  he  really 
cares  for.  So  when  they  consult  him  about  women's 
apparel  (a  subject  on  which  his  opinion  may  be  pretty 
correctly  imagined  by  the  ingenious  reader  for  himself) 
he  takes  occasion  to  anticipate  some  of  the  most  offen- 
sive matter  of  the  ' '  First  Blast "  in  a  style  of  real 
brutality.^  It  is  not  merely  that  he  tells  them  "  the 
garments  of  women  do  declare  their  weakness  and  in- 
ability to  execute  the  office  of  man,"  though  that  in 
itself  is  neither  very  wise  nor  very  opportune  in  such  a 
correspondence  one  would  think  ;  but  if  the  reader 
will  take  the  trouble  to  wade  through  the  long,  tedious 
sermon  for  himself,  he  will  see  proof  enough  that 
Knox  neither  loved,  nor  very  deeply  respected,  the 
women  he  was  then  addressing.  In  very  truth,  I  be- 
lieve these  Edinburgh  sisters  simply  bored  him.  He 
had  a  certain  interest  in  them  as  his  children  in   the 

1   Works,  IV.  246.  "^  lb.  iv.  225. 


AND  Ills  RELATIONS    TO    WOMEN.       343 

Lord  ;  they  were  continually  "  provoking  him  by 
their  writing  ;"  and,  if  they  handed  his  letters  about, 
writing  to  them  was  as  good  a  form  of  publication  as 
was  then  open  to  him  in  Scotland.  There  is  one  let- 
ter, however,  in  this  budget,  addressed  to  the  wife  of 
Clerk-Register  Mackgil,  which  is  worthy  of  some  fur- 
ther mention.  The  Clerk-Register  had  not  opened 
his  heart,  it  would  appear,  to  the  preaching  of  the 
Gospel,  and  Mrs.  Mackgil  has  written,  seeking  the 
Reformer's  prayers  in  his  behalf.  "  Your  husband," 
he  answers,  "  is  dear  to  me  for  that  he  is  a  man  in- 
dued with  some  good  gifts,  but  more  dear  for  that  he 
is  your  husband.  Charity  moveth  me  to  thirst  his  il- 
lumination, both  for  his  comfort  and  for  the  trouble 
which  you  sustain  by  his  coldness,  which  justly  may 
be  called  infidelity."  He  wishes  her,  however,  not 
to  hope  too  much  ;  he  can  promise  that  his  prayers 
will  be  earnest,  but  not  that  they  will  be  effectual  ;  it 
is  possible  that  this  is  to  be  her  '*  cross"  in  life  ;  that 
"  her  head,  appointed  by  God  for  her  comfort,  should 
be  her  enemy. ' '  And  if  this  be  so,  well,  there  is 
nothing  for  it ;  "  with  patience  she  must  abide  God's 
merciful  deliverance,"  taking  heed  only  that  she  does 
not  "  obey  manifest  iniquity  for  the  pleasure  of  any 
mortal  man. "  '  I  conceive  this  epistle  would  have 
given  a  very  modified  sort  of  pleasure  to  the  Clerk- 
Register,  had  it  chanced  to  fall  into  his  hands.  Com- 
pare its  tenor — the  dry  resignation  not  without  a  hope 
of   merciful   deliverance  therein  recommended — with 

'  Works,  iv.  245. 


344  JOHN  KNOX 

these  words  from  another  letter,  written  but  the  year 
before  to  two  married  women  of  London  :  "  Call  first 
for  grace  by  Jesus,  and  thereafter  communicate  with 
your  faithful  husbands,  and  then  shall  God,  I  doubt 
not,  conduct  your  footsteps,  and  direct  your  counsels 
to  His  glory. "  '  Here  the  husbands  are  put  in  a  very 
high  place  ;  we  can  recognize  here  the  same  hand 
that  has  written  for  our  instruction  how  the  man  is  set 
above  the  woman,  even  as  God  above  the  angels.  But 
the  point  of  the  distinction  is  plain.  For  Clerk- 
Register  Mackgil  was  not  a  faithful  husband  ;  dis- 
played, indeed,  toward  religion  a  "  coldness  which 
justly  might  be  called  infidelity."  We  shall  see  in 
more  notable  instances  how  much  Knox's  conception 
of  the  duty  of  wives  varies  according  to  the  zeal  and 
orthodoxy  of  the  husband. 

As  I  have  said,  he  may  possibly  have  made  the  ac- 
quaintance of  Mrs.  Mackgil,  Mrs.  Guthrie,  or  some 
other,  or  all,  of  these  Edinburgh  friends  while  he  was 
still  Douglas  of  Longniddry's  private  tutor.  But  our 
certain  knowledge  begins  in  1549.  He  was  then  but 
newly  escaped  from  his  captivity  in  France,  after  pull- 
ing an  oar  for  nineteen  months  on  the  benches  of 
the  galley  Notre  Dame ;  now  up  the  rivers,  holding 
stealthy  intercourse  with  other  Scottish  prisoners  in 
the  castle  of  Rouen  ;  now  out  in  the  North  Sea,  rais- 
ing his  sick  head  to  catch  a  glimpse  of  the  far-off 
steeples  of  St.  Andrews.  And  now  he  was  sent  down 
by  the  English  Privy  Council  as  a  preacher  to  Berwick- 

1   Works,  iv.  221. 


AND   Ills  RELATIONS    TO    WOMEN.       345 

upon-Tweed  ;  somewhat  shaken  in  health  by  all  his 
hardships,  full  of  pains  and  agues,  and  tormented  by- 
gravel,  that  sorrow  of  great  men  ;  altogether,  what  with 
his  romantic  story,  his  weak  health,  and  his  great 
faculty  of  eloquence,  a  very  natural  object  for  the 
sympathy  of  devout  women.  At  this  happy  juncture 
he  fell  into  the  company  of  a  Mrs.  Elizabeth  Bowes, 
wife  of  Richard  Bowes,  of  Aske,  in  Yorkshire,  to 
whom  she  had  borne  twelve  children.  She  was  a  re- 
h'gious  hypochondriac,  a  very  weariful  woman,  full  of 
doubts  and  scruples,  and  giving  no  rest  on  earth  either 
to  herself  or  to  those  whom  she  honored  with  her  con- 
fidence. From  the  first  time  she  heard  Knox  preach 
she  formed  a  high  opinion  of  him,  and  was  solicitous 
ever  after  of  his  society.  *  Nor  was  Knox  unresponsive. 
"I  have  always  delighted  in  your  company,"  he 
writes,  "  and  when  labors  would  permit,  you  know  I 
have  not  spared  hours  to  talk  and  commune  with 
you."  Often  when  they  had  met  in  depression  he 
reminds  her,  "  God  hath  sent  great  comfort  unto 
both."  ^  We  can  gather  from  such  letters  as  are  yet 
extant  how  close  and  continuous  was  their  intercourse. 
*' I  think  it  best  you  remain  till  the  morrow,"  he 
writes  once,  "and  so  shall  we  commune  at  large  at 
afternoon.  This  day  you  know  to  be  the  day  of  my 
study  and  prayer  unto  God  ;  yet  if  your  trouble  be 
intolerable,  or  if  you  think  my  presence  may  release 
your  pain,  do  as  the  Spirit  shall  move  you.  .  .  . 
Your  messenger  found  me  in  bed,  after  a  sore  trouble 

Works,  vi.  514.  ^  lb.  iii.  338. 


346  JOHN  KNOX 

and  most  dolorous  night,  and  so  dolor  may  complain 
to  dolor  when  we  two  meet.  .  .  .  And  this  is  more 
plain  than  ever  I  spoke,  to  let  you  know  you  have  a 
companion  in  trouble."  '  Once  we  have  the  curtain 
raised  for  a  moment,  and  can  look  at  the  two  together 
for  the  length  of  a  phrase.  "  After  the  writing  of  this 
preceding,"  writes  Knox,  "your  brother  and  mine, 
Harrie  Wycliffe,  did  advertise  me  by  writing,  that 
your  adversary  (the  devil)  took  occasion  to  trouble 
you  because  that  I  did  stai't  back  from yoti  rehearsing 
your  infirmilies.  I  remember  viyself  so  to  have  done, 
and  that  is  my  common  C07isuelude  when  miylhing  pierc- 
eih  or  ioiicheth  my  heart.  Call  to  your  vmid  what  I 
did  standi7ig  at  the  cupboard  at  Alnwick.  In  \'ery  deed 
I  thought  that  no  creature  had  been  tempted  as  I  was  ; 
and  when  1  heard  proceed  from  your  mouth  the  ver) 
same  words  that  he  troubles  me  with,  I  did  wonder 
and  from  my  heart  lament  your  sore  trouble,  knowing 
in  myself  the  dolor  thereof."  '^  Now  intercourse  of 
so  very  close  a  description,  whether  it  be  religious  in- 
tercourse or  not,  is  apt  to  displease  and  disquiet  a  hus- 
band ;  and  we  know  incidentally  from  Knox  himself 
that  there  was  some  little  scandal  about  his  intimacy 
with  Mrs.  Bowes,  "  The  slander  and  fear  of  men," 
he  writes,  "has  impeded  me  to  exercise  my  pen  so 
oft  as  I  would  ;  yea,  very  shame  hath  holden  me  from 
your  company,  when  I  ivas  most  surely  persuaded  that 
God  had  appointed  me  at  that  time  to  comfort  and  feed 
your  hungry  and  afflicted  soul.      God   in  His  infinite 

1  Works,  iii.  352,  353.  *  lb.  iii.  350. 


AND  HIS  RELATIONS    TO    WOMEN.       347 

mercy, ' '  he  goes  on,  '  *  remove  not  only  from  me  all 
fear  that  tendeth  not  to  godlmess,  but  from  others  sus- 
picion to  judge  of  me  otherwise  than  it  becomelh  one 
member  to  Judge  of  another. ' '  '  And  the  scandal, 
such  as  it  was,  would  not  be  allayed  by  the  dissension 
in  which  Mrs.  Bowes  seems  to  have  lived  with  her 
family  upon  the  matter  of  religion,  and  the  counte- 
nance shown  by  Knox  to  her  resistance.  Talking  of 
these  conflicts,  and  her  courage  against  "  her  own 
flesh  and  most  inward  affections,  yea,  against  some  of 
her  most  natural  friends,"  he  writes  it,  "  to  the  praise 
of  God,  he  has  wondered  at  the  bold  constancy  which 
he  has  found  in  her  when  his  own  heart  was  faint. ' '  * 
Now,  perhaps  in  order  to  stop  scandalous  mouths, 
perhaps  out  of  a  desire  to  bind  the  much-loved  evan- 
gelist nearer  to  her  in  the  only  manner  possible,  Mrs. 
Bowes  conceived  the  scheme  of  marrying  him  to  her 
fifth  daughter,  Marjorie  ;  and  the  Reformer  seems  to 
have  fallen  in  with  it  readily  enough.  It  seems  to 
have  been  believed  in  the  family  that  the  whole  matter 
had  been  originally  made  up  between  these  two,  with 
no  very  spontaneous  inclination  on  the  part  of  the 
bride.'  Knox's  idea  of  marriage,  as  I  have  said,  was 
not  the  same  for  all  men  ;  but  on  the  whole,  it  was 
not  lofty.  We  have  a  curious  letter  of  his,  written  at 
the  request  of  Queen  Mary,  to  the  Earl  of  Argyle,  on 
very  delicate  household  matters  ;  which,  as  he  tells 
us,  *'  was  not  well  accepted  of  the  said  Earl."  *     We 

1  Works,  iii.  390,  391.  '  li.  iii.  378. 

^  IS.  iii.  142.  *  lb.  ii.  379. 


34S  JOHN  KNOX 

may  suppose,  however,  that  his  own  home  was  regu- 
lated in  a  similar  spirit.  I  can  fancy  that  for  such  a 
man,  emotional,  and  with  a  need,  now  and  again,  to 
exercise  parsimony  in  emotions  not  strictly  needful, 
something  a  little  mechanical,  something  hard  and 
fast  and  clearly  understood,  would  enter  into  his  ideal 
of  a  home.  There  were  storms  enough  without,  and 
equability  was  to  be  desired  at  the  fireside  even  at  a 
sacrifice  of  deeper  pleasures.  So,  from  a  wife,  of  all 
wom.en,  he  would  not  ask  much.  One  letter  to  her 
which  has  come  down  to  us  is,  I  had  almost  said, 
conspicuous  for  coldness. '  He  calls  her,  as  he  called 
other  female  correspondents,  "  dearly  beloved  sister  ;" 
the  epistle  is  doctrinal,  and  nearly  the  half  of  it  bears, 
not  upon  her  own  case,  but  upon  that  of  her  mother. 
However,  we  know  what  Heine  wrote  in  his  wife's 
album  ;  and  there  is,  after  all,  one  passage  that  may 
be  held  to  intimate  some  tenderness,  although  even 
that  admits  of  an  amusingly  opposite  construction. 
"  I  think,"  he  says,  "  I  think  this  be  the  first  letter  I 
ever  wrote  to  you."  This,  if  we  are  to  take  it  liter- 
ally, may  pair  off  with  the  "  two  or  three  children" 
whom  Montaigne  mentions  having  lost  at  nurse  ;  the 
one  is  as  eccentric  in  a  lover  as  the  other  in  a  parent 
Nevertheless,  he  displayed  more  energy  in  the  course 
of  his  troubled  wooing  than  might  have  been  expected. 
The  whole  Bowes  family,  angry  enough  already  at  the 
influence  he  had  obtained  over  the  mother,  set  their 
faces  obdurately  against  the  match.     And  I  dare  say 

1  Works,  iii   394. 


AND  HIS  RELATIONS    TO    WOMEN.       349 

the  opposition  quickened  his  inclination.  I  find  him 
writing  to  Mrs.  Bowes  that  she  need  no  further  trouble 
herself  about  the  marriage  ;  it  should  now  be  his  busi- 
ness altogether  ;  it  behoved  him  now  to  jeopard  his 
life  "  for  the  comfort  of  his  own  flesh,  both  fear  and 
friendship  of  all  earthly  creature  laid  aside."  '  This 
is  a  wonderfully  chivalrous  utterance  for  a  Reformer 
forty-eight  years  old  ;  and  it  compares  well  with  the 
leaden  coquetries  of  Calvin,  not  much  over  thirty,  tak- 
ing this  and  that  into  consideration,  weighing  together 
dowries  and  religious  qualifications  and  the  instancy 
of  friends,  and  exhibiting  what  M.  Bungener  calls 
"  an  honorable  and  Christian  difficulty"  of  choice, 
in  frigid  indecisions  and  insincere  proposals.  But 
Knox's  next  letter  is  in  a  humbler  tone  ;  he  has  not 
found  the  negotiation  so  easy  as  he  fancied  ;  he  de- 
spairs of  the  marriage  altogether,  and  talks  of  leaving 
England, — regards  not  "  what  country  consumes  his 
wicked  carcass."  "  You  shall  understand,"  he  says, 
"  that  this  sixth  of  November,  I  spoke  with  Sir  Robert 
Bowes"  (the  head  of  the  family,  his  bride's  uncle) 
"  in  the  matter  you  know,  according  to  your  request  ; 
whose  disdainful,  yea,  despiteful,  words  hath  so  pierced 
my  heart  that  my  life  is  bitter  to  me.  I  bear  a  good 
countenance  with  a  sore  troubled  heart,  because  he 
that  ought  to  consider  matters  with  a  deep  judgment 
is  become  not  only  a  despiser,  but  also  a  taunter  of 
God's  messengers  —  God  be  merciful  unto  him  ! 
Among  others  his  most  unpleasing  words,  while  that 

1  Works,  iii.  376^ 


350  JOHN  KNOX 

I  was  about  to  have  declared  my  heart  in  the  whole 
matter,  he  said,  '  Away  with  your  rhetorical  reasons  ! 
for  I  will  not  be  persuaded  with  them.'  God  knows 
I  did  use  no  rhetoric  nor  colored  speech  ;  but  would 
have  spoken  the  truth,  and  that  in  most  simple  man- 
ner. I  am  not  a  good  orator  in  ray  own  cause  ;  but 
what  he  would  not  be  content  to  hear  of  me,  God 
shall  declare  to  him  one  day  to  his  displeasure,  unless 
he  repent."  '  Poor  Knox,  you  see,  is  quite  com- 
moved.  It  has  been  a  very  unpleasant  interview. 
And  as  it  is  the  only  sample  that  we  have  of  how 
things  went  with  him  during  his  courtship,  we  may 
infer  that  the  period  was  not  as  agreeable  for  Knox  as 
it  has  been  for  some  others. 

However,  when  once  they  were  married,  I  imagine 
he  and  Marjorie  Bowes  hit  it  off  together  comfortably 
enough.  The  little  we  know  of  it  may  be  brought 
together  in  a  very  short  space.  She  bore  him  two 
sons.  He  seems  to  have  kept  her  pretty  busy,  and 
depended  on  her  to  some  degree  in  his  work  ;  so  that 
when  she  fell  ill,  his  papers  got  at  once  into  disorder. ' 
Certainly  she  sometimes  wrote  to  his  dictation  ;  and, 
in  this  capacity,  he  calls  her  "  his  left  hand."  '  In 
June  1559,  at  the  headiest  moment  of  the  Reforma- 
tion in  Scotland,  he  writes  regretting  the  absence  of 
his  helpful  colleague,  Goodman,  "whose  presence" 
(this  is  the  not  very  grammatical  form  of  his  lament) 
"  whose  presence  I  more  thirst,  than  she  that  is  my 

>  Works,  iii-  378.  ^  lb.  vi.  104.  ^  lb.  v.  5. 


AND  HIS  RELATIONS    TO    WOMEN.       351 

own  flesh."  '  And  this,  considering  the  source  and 
the  circumstances,  may  be  held  as  evidence  of  a  very 
tender  sentiment.  He  tells  us  himself  in  his  history, 
on  the  occasion  of  a  certain  meeting  at  the  Kirk  of 
Field,  that  "  he  was  in  no  small  heaviness  by  reason 
of  the  late  death  of  his  dear  bed-fellow,  Marjorie 
Bowes."  "^  Calvin,  condoling  with  him,  speaks  of  her 
as  *'  a  wife  whose  like  is  not  to  be  found  everywhere" 
(that  is  very  like  Calvin),  and  again,  as  "  the  most 
delightful  of  wives.  "  We  know  what  Calvin  thought 
desirable  in  a  wife,  "  good  humor,  chastity,  thrift, 
patience,  and  solicitude  for  her  husband's  health," 
and  so  we  may  suppose  that  the  first  Mrs.  Ivnox  fell 
not  far  short  of  this  ideal. 

The  actual  date  of  the  marriage  is  uncertain  ;  but 
by  September  1566,  at  the  latest,  the  Reformer  was 
settled  in  Geneva  with  his  wife.  There  is  no  fear 
either  that  he  will  be  dull  ;  even  if  the  chaste,  thrifty, 
patient  Marjorie  should  not  altogether  occupy  his 
mind,  he  need  not  go  out  of  the  house  to  seek  more 
female  sympathy  ;  for  behold  !  Mrs.  Bowes  is  duly 
domesticated  with  the  young  couple.  Dr.  M'Crie 
imagined  that  Richard  Bowes  was  now  dead,  and  his 
widow,  consequently,  free  to  live  where  she  would  ; 
and  where  could  she  go  more  naturally  than  to  the 
house  of  a  married  daughter }  This,  however,  is  not 
the  case.  Richard  Bowes  did  not  die  till  at  least  two 
years  later.  It  is  impossible  to  believe  that  he  ap- 
proved of  his  wife's  desertion,  after  so  many  years  of 

'  Works,  vi.  27.  '-^  //>.  ii.  138. 


352  JOHN  KNOX 

marriage,  after  twelve  children  had  been  born  to 
them  ;  and  accordingly  we  find  in  his  will,  dated 
1558,  no  mention  either  of  her  or  of  Knox's  wife.^ 
This  is  plain  sailing.  It  is  easy  enough  to  understand 
the  anger  of  Bowes  against  this  interloper,  who  had 
come  into  a  quiet  family,  married  the  daughter  in 
spite  of  the  father's  opposition,  alienated  the  wife  from 
the  husband  and  the  husband's  religion,  supported  her 
in  a  long  course  of  resistance  and  rebellion,  and,  after 
years  of  intimacy,  already  too  close  and  tender  for  any 
jealous  spirit  to  behold  without  resentment,  carried 
her  away  with  him  at  last  into  a  foreign  land.  But  it 
is  not  quite  easy  to  understand  how,  except  out  of 
sheer  weariness  and  disgust,  he  was  ever  brought  to 
agree  to  the  arrangement.  Nor  is  it  easy  to  square  the 
Reformer's  conduct  with  his  public  teaching.  We 
have,  for  instance,  a  letter  addressed  by  him,  Craig, 
and  Spottiswood,  to  the  Archbishops  of  Canterbury 
and  York,  anent  "  a  wicked  and  rebellious  woman," 
one  Anne  Good,  spouse  to  "  John  Barron,  a  minister 
of  Christ  Jesus  his  evangel,"  who,  "  after  great  rebel- 
lion shown  unto  him,  and  divers  admonitions  given, 
as  well  by  himself  as  by  others  in  his  name,  that  she 
should  in  no  wise  depart  from  this  realm,  nor  from  his 
house  without  his  license,  hath  not  the  less  stubbornly 
and  rebelliously  departed,  separated  herself  from  his 
society,  left  his  house,  and  withdrawn  herself  from 
this  realm."  '     Perhaps  some  sort  of  license  was  ex- 

'  Mr.  Laing's  preface  to  the  sixth  volume  of  Knox's  Works,  p.  Ixii. 
^  Works,  vi.  534. 


AND   HIS  RELATIONS    TO    WOMEN.       353 

torted,  as  I  have  said,  from  Richard  Bowes,  weary 
with  years  of  domestic  dissension  ;  but  setting  that 
aside,  the  words  employed  with  so  much  righteous  in- 
dignation by  Knox,  Craig,  and  Spottiswood,  to  de- 
scribe the  conduct  of  that  wicked  and  rebelUous 
woman,  Mrs.  Barron,  would  describe  nearly  as  exactly 
the  conduct  of  the  religious  Mrs.  Bowes.  It  is  a  little 
bewildering,  until  we  recollect  the  distinction  between 
faithful  and  unfaithful  husbands  ;  for  Barron  was  "  a 
minister  of  Christ  Jesus  his  evangel, ' '  while  Richard 
Bowes,  besides  being  own  brother  to  a  despiser  and 
taunter  of  God's  messengers,  is  shrewdly  suspected  to 
have  been  ' '  a  bigoted  adherent  of  the  Roman  Catho- 
lic faith,"  or,  as  Knox  himself  would  have  expressed 
it,  "a  rotten  Papist. ' ' 

You  would  have 'thought  that  Knox  was  now  pretty 
well  supplied  with  female  society.  But  we  are  not 
yet  at  the  end  of  the  roll.  The  last  year  of  his  sojourn 
in  England  had  been  spent  principally  in  London, 
where  he  was  resident  as  one  of  the  chaplains  of  Ed- 
ward the  Sixth  ;  and  here  he  boasts,  although  a 
stranger,  he  had,  by  God's  grace,  found  favor  before 
many. '  The  godly  women  of  the  metropolis  made 
much  of  him  ;  once  he  writes  to  Mrs.  Bowes  that  her 
last  letter  had  found  him  closeted  with  three,  and  he 
and  the  three  women  were  all  in  tears.*  Out  of  all, 
however,  he  had  chosen  two.  "  God,"  he  writes  to 
them,  '  *  brought  us  in  such  familiar  acquaintance,  that 
your  hearts  were  incensed  and  kindled  with  a  special  care 

•  Works,  iv.  220.  *  lb.  iii.  380. 


354  JOHN  KNOX 

over  vie,  as  a  mother  useth  to  he  over  her  natural  child ; 
and  my  heart  was  opened  and  compelled  in  your  pres- 
ence to  be  more  plain  than  ever  I  was  to  any."  ' 
And  out  of  the  two  even  he  had  chosen  one,  IMrs. 
Anne  Locke,  wife  to  i\Ir.  Harry  Locke,  merchant, 
nigh  to  Bow  Kirk,  Cheapside,  in  London,  as  the  ad- 
dress runs.  If  one  may  venture  to  judge  upon  such 
imperfect  evidence,  this  was  the  woman  he  loved  best. 
I  have  a  difficulty  in  quite  forming  to  myself  an  idea 
of  her  character.  She  may  have  been  one  of  the  three 
tearful  visitors  before  alluded  to  ;  she  may  even  have 
been  that  one  of  them  who  was  so  profoundly  moved 
by  some  passages  of  Mrs.  Bowes' s  letter,  which  the 
Reformer  opened,  and  read  aloud  to  them  before  they 
went.  "  O  would  to  God,"  cried  this  impressionable 
matron,  "  would  to  God  that  I  might  speak  with  that 
person,  for  I  perceive  there  are  more  tempted  than 
I."  ^  This  may  have  been  Mrs.  Locke,  as  I  say  ;  but 
even  if  it  were,  we  must  not  conclude  from  this  one 
fact  that  she  was  such  another  as  Mrs.  Bowes.  All 
the  evidence  tends  the  other  way.  She  was  a  woman 
of  understanding,  plainly,  who  followed  political  events 
with  interest,  and  to  whom  Knox  thought  it  worth 
while  to  write,  in  detail,  the  history  of  his  trials  and 
successes.  She  was  religious,  but  without  that  morbid 
perversity  of  spirit  that  made  religion  so  heavy  a  bur- 
den for  the  poor-hearted  Mrs.  Bowes.  jNIore  of  her  I 
do  not  find,  save  testimony  to  the  profound  affection 
that  united  her  to  the   Reformer.     So  we  find  him 

1  Works,  iv.  220.  *  lb.  iii.  380. 


AND   HIS  RELATIONS    TO    WOMEN.       355 

writing  to  her  from  Geneva,  in  such  terms  as  these  : 
— "  You  write  that  your  desire  is  earnest  to  see  me. 
Dear  sister,  if  I  should  express  the  thirst  and  lajigiior 
which  I  have  had  for  your  presence,  I  shouhi  appear  to 
pass  ?neasure.  .  .  .  Yea,  I  weep  and  rejoice  in  re- 
membrance of  you ;  but  that  would  evanish  by  the 
comfort  of  your  presence,  which  I  assure  you  is  so 
dear  to  me,  that  if  the  charge  of  this  little  flock  here, 
gathered  together  in  Christ's  name,  did  not  impede 
me,  my  coming  should  prevent  my  letter."'  I  say 
that  this  was  written  from  Geneva  ;  and  yet  you  will 
observe  that  it  is  no  consideration  for  his  wife  or 
mother-in-law,  only  the  charge  of  his  little  flock,  that 
keeps  him  from  setting  out  forthwith  for  London,  to 
comfort  himself  with  the  dear  presence  of  Mrs.  Locke. 
Remember  that  was  a  certain  plausible  enough  pretext 
for  ]\Irs.  Locke  to  come  to  Geneva — ' '  the  most  per- 
fect school  of  Christ  that  ever  was  on  earth  since  the 
days  of  the  Apostles" — for  we  are  now  under  the 
reign  of  that  "  horrible  monster  Jezebel  of  England," 
when  a  lady  of  good  orthodox  sentiments  was  better 
out  of  London.  It  was  doubtful,  however,  whether 
this  was  to  be.  She  was  detained  in  England,  partly 
by  circumstances  unknown,  "  partly  by  empire  of  her 
head,"  Mr.  Harry  Locke,  the  Cheapside  merchant. 
It  is  somewhat  humorous  to  see  Knox  struggling  for 
resignation,  now  that  he  has  to  do  with  a  faithful  hus- 
band (for  Mr.  Harry  Locke  was  faithful).  Had  it 
been  otherwise,  "in  my  heart,"  he  says,  "I  could 

1   Woiks,  iv.  238 


356  JOHN  KNOX 

have  wished — yea, ' '  here  he  breaks  out,  ' '  yea,  an^ 
cannot  cease  to  wish — that  God  would  guide  you  to 
this  place."  '  And  after  all,  he  had  not  long  to  wait, 
for,  whether  Mr.  Harry  Locke  died  in  the  interval,  or 
was  wearied,  he  too,  into  giving  permission,  five 
months  after  the  date  of  the  letter  last  quoted,  "  Mrs. 
Anne  Locke,  Harry  her  son,  and  Anne  her  daughter, 
and  Katharine  her  maid,"  arrived  in  that  perfect 
school  of  Christ,  the  Presbyterian  paradise,  Geneva. 
So  now,  and  for  the  next  two  years,  the  cup  of  ICnox's 
happiness  was  surely  full.  Of  an  afternoon,  when  the 
bells  rang  out  for  the  sermon,  the  shops  closed,  and 
the  good  folk  gathered  to  the  churches,  psalm-book 
in  hand,  we  can  imagine  him  drawing  near  to  the 
English  chapel  in  quite  patriarchal  fashion,  with  Mrs. 
Knox  and  Mrs.  Bowes  and  Mrs.  Locke,  James  his 
servant,  Patrick  his  pupil,  and  a  due  following  of  chil- 
dren and  maids.  Pie  might  be  alone  at  work  all 
morning  in  his  study,  for  he  wrote  much  during  these 
two  years  ;  but  at  night,  you  may  be  sure  there  was  a 
circle  of  admiring  women,  eager  to  hear  the  new  par- 
agraph, and  not  sparing  of  applause.  And  what  work, 
among  others,  was  he  elaborating  at  this  time,  but  the 
notorious  ' '  First  Blast "  }  So  that  he  may  have  rolled 
out  in  his  big  pulpit  voice,  how  women  were  weak, 
frail,  impatient,  feeble,  foolish,  inconstant,  variable, 
cruel,  and  lacking  the  spirit  of  counsel,  and  how 
men  were  above  them,  even  as  God  is  above  the 
^.ngels,  in  the  ears  of  his  own  wife,  and  the  two  dearest 

1  Works,  iv.  240. 


AND  HIS  RELATIONS    TO    WOMEN.       357 

friends  he  had  on  earth.  But  he  had  lost  the  sense  of 
incongruity,  and  continued  to  despise  in  theory  the 
sex  he  honored  so  much  in  practice,  of  whom  he 
chose  his  most  intimate  associates,  and  whose  courage 
he  was  compelled  to  wonder  at,  when  his  own  heart 
was  faint. 

We  may  say  that  such  a  man  was  not  worthy  of  his 
fortune  ;  and  so,  as  he  would  not  learn,  he  was  taken 
away  from  that  agreeable  school,  and  his  fellowship  of 
women  was  broken  up,  not  to  be  reunited.  Called 
into  Scotland  to  take  at  last  that  strange  position  in 
history  which  is  his  best  claim  to  commemoration,  he 
was  followed  thither  by  his  wife  and  his  mother-in-law. 
The  wife  soon  died.  The  death  of  her  daughter  did 
not  altogether  separate  INIrs.  Bowes  from  Knox,  but 
she  seems  to  have  come  and  gone  between  his  house 
and  England.  In  1562,  however,  we  find  him  char- 
acterized as  "  a  sole  man  by  reason  of  the  absence  of 
his  mother-in-law,  ]\Irs.  Bowes, ' '  and  a  passport  is 
got  for  her,  her  man,  a  maid,  and  "  three  horses, 
whereof  two  shall  return,"  as  well  as  liberty  to  take  all 
her  own  money  with  her  into  Scotland.  This  looks 
like  a  definite  arrangement ;  but  whether  she  died  at 
Edinburgh,  or  went  back  to  England  yet  again,  I  can- 
not find.  With  that  great  family  of  hers,  unless  in 
leaving  her  husband  she  had  quarrelled  with  them  all, 
there  must  have  been  frequent  occasion  for  her  pres- 
ence, one  would  think.  Knox  at  least  survived  her  ; 
arid  we  possess  his  epigraph  to  their  long  intimacy, 
given  to  the  world  by  him  in  an  appendix  to  his  latest 


358  JOHN  KNOX 

publication.  I  have  said  in  a  former  paper  that  Knox 
was  not  shy  of  personal  revelations  in  his  published 
works.  And  the  trick  seems  to  have  grown  on  him. 
To  this  last  tract,  a  controversial  onslaught  on  a  Scot- 
tish Jesuit,  he  prefixed  a  prayer,  not  very  pertinent  to 
the  matter  in  hand,  and  containing  references  to  his 
family  which  were  the  occasion  of  some  wit  in  his  ad- 
versary's answer  ;  and  appended  what  seems  equally 
irrelevant,  one  of  his  devout  letters  to  !Mrs.  Bowes, 
with  an  explanatory  preface.  To  say  truth,  I  believe 
he  had  always  felt  uneasily  that  the  circumstances  of 
this  intimacy  were  very  capable  of  misconstruction  ; 
and  now,  when  he  was  an  old  man,  taking  ' '  his  good 
night  of  all  the  faithful  in  both  realms,"  and  only  de- 
sirous "  that  without  any  notable  sclander  to  the 
evangel  of  Jesus  Christ,  he  might  end  his  batde  ;  for 
as  the  world  was  weary  of  him,  so  was  he  of  it  ;' ' — in 
such  a  spirit  it  was  not,  perhaps,  unnatural  that  he 
should  return  to  this  old  story,  and  seek  to  put  it  right 
in  the  eyes  of  all  men,  ere  he  died.  "  Because  that 
God,"  he  says,  "  because  that  God  now  in  His  mercy 
hath  put  an  end  to  the  battle  of  my  dear  mother,  ]Mis- 
tress  Elizabeth  Bowes,  before  that  He  put  an  end  to  my 
wretched  life,  I  could  not  cease  but  declare  to  the 
world  what  was  the  cause  of  our  great  familiarity  and 
long  acquaintance ;  which  was  neither  flesh  nor 
blood,  but  a  troubled  conscience  upon  her  part,  which 
never  suffered  her  to  rest  but  when  she  was  in  the 
company  of  the  faithful,  of  whom  (from  the  fust  hear- 
ing of  the  word  at  my  mouth)  she  judged  me  to  be 


4ND   HIS  RELATIONS    TO    WOMEN.       359 

one.  ,  .  ,  Her  company  to  me  was  comfortable 
(yea,  honorable  and  profitable,  for  she  was  to  me  and 
mine  a  mother),  but  yet  it  was  not  without  some 
cross  ;  for  besides  trouble  and  fashery  of  body  sus- 
tained for  her,  my  mind  was  seldom  quiet,  for  doing 
somewhat  for  the  comfort  of  her  troubled  con- 
science." '  He  had  written  to  her  years  before,  from 
his  first  exile  in  Dieppe,  that  "  only  God's  hand" 
could  withhold  him  from  once  more  speaking  with  her 
face  to  face  ;  and  now,  when  God's  hand  has  indeed 
interposed,  when  there  lies  between  them,  instead  of 
the  voyageable  straits,  that  great  gulf  over  which  no 
man  can  pass,  this  is  the  spirit  in  which  he  can  look 
back  upon  their  long  acquaintance.  She  was  a  re- 
ligious hypochondriac,  it  appears,  whom,  not  without 
some  cross  and  fashery  of  mind  and  body,  he  was 
good  enough  to  tend.  He  might  have  given  a  truer 
character  of  their  friendship,  had  he  thought  less  of 
his  own  standing  in  public  estimation,  and  more  of 
the  dead  woman.  But  he  was  in  all  things,  as  Burke 
said  of  his  son  in  that  ever-memorable  passage,  a  pub- 
lic creature.  He  wished  that  even  into  this  private 
place  of  his  affections  posterity  should  follow  him  with 
a  complete  approval  ;  and  he  was  willing,  in  order 
that  this  might  be  so,  to  exhibit  the  defects  of  his  lost 
friend,  and  tell  the  world  what  weariness  he  had  sus- 
tained through  her  unhappy  disposition.  There  is 
something  here  that  reminds  one  of  Rousseau. 

I  do  not  think  he  ever  saw  Mrs.  Locke  after  he  left 

1  Works,  vi.  513,  514. 


3<5o  JOHN  KNOX 

Geneva  ;  but  his  correspondence  with  her  continued 
for  three  years.  It  may  have  continued  longer,  of 
course,  but  I  think  the  last  letters  we  possess  read  like 
the  last  that  would  be  written.  Perhaps  Mrs.  Locke 
was  then  remarried,  for  there  is  much  obscurity  over 
her  subsequent  history.  For  as  long  as  their  intimacy 
was  kept  up,  at  least,  the  human  element  remains  in 
the  Reformer's  life.  Here  is  one  passage,  for  exam- 
ple, the  most  likable  utterance  of  Knox's  that  I  can 
quote  : — ]\Irs.  Locke  has  been  upbraiding  him  as  a 
bad  correspondent.  "  ^ly  remembrance  of  you,"  he 
answers,  "  is  not  so  dead,  but  I  trust  it  shall  be  fresh 
enough,  albeit  it  be  renewed  by  no  outward  token  for 
one  year.  0/  7iahire,  I  am  churlish  ;  yet  one  thing  I 
ashame  not  to  affirm,  that  familiarity  once  thoroughly  con- 
tracted ivas  7iever  yet  broken  on  ?ny  default.  The  cause 
may  he  that  I  have  rather  7ieed  of  all,  than  that  any  have 
7ieed  of  vie.  However  it  {that)  be,  it  cannot  be,  as  I 
say,  the  corporal  absence  of  one  year  or  two  that  can 
quench  in  my  heart  that  familiar  acquaintance  in 
Christ  Jesus,  which  half  a  year  did  engender,  and  al- 
most two  years  did  nourish  and  confirm.  And  there- 
fore, whether  I  write  or  no,  be  assuredly  persuaded 
that  I  have  you  in  such  memory  as  becometh  the 
faithful  to  have  of  the  faithful. ' '  '  This  is  the  truest 
touch  of  personal  humility  that  I  can  remember  to 
have  seen  in  all  the  five  volumes  of  the  Reformer's  col- 
lected works  :  it  is  no  small  honor  to  ^Irs.  Locke  that 
his  affection  for  her  should  have  brought  home  to  him 

'  Works,  vi.  ii. 


AND   HIS  RELATIONS    TO    WOMEN.       361 

this  unwonted  feeling  of  dependence  upon  others. 
Everything  else  in  the  course  of  the  correspondence 
testifies  to  a  good,  sound,  downright  sort  of  friendship 
between  the  two,  less  ecstatic  than  it  was  at  first,  per- 
haps, but  serviceable  and  very  equal.  He  gives  her 
ample  details  as  to  the  progress  of  the  work  of  refor- 
mation ;  sends  her  the  sheets  of  the  Confessmi  of  Faith, 
"in  quairs,"  as  he  calls  it;  asks  her  to  assist  him 
with  her  prayers,  to  collect  money  for  the  good  cause 
in  Scotland,  and  to  send  him  books  for  himself — books 
by  Calvin  especially,  one  on  Isaiah,  and  a  new  revised 
edition  of  the  "  Institutes."  "  I  must  be  bold  on 
your  liberality,"  he  writes,  "  not  only  in  that,  but  in 
greater  things  as  I  shall  need."  '  On  her  part  she 
applies  to  him  for  spiritual  advice,  not  after  the  man- 
ner of  the  drooping  Mrs.  Bowes,  but  in  a  more  posi- 
tive spirit, — advice  as  to  practical  points,  advice  as  to 
the  Church  of  England,  for  instance,  whose  ritual  he 
condemns  as  a  "  mingle-mangle."  "^  Just  at  the  end 
she  ceases  to  write,  sends  him  "  a  token,  without 
writing."  "  I  understand  your  impediment, "  he  an- 
swers, ' '  and  therefore  I  cannot  complain.  Yet  if  you 
understood  the  variety  of  my  temptations,  I  doubt  not 
but  you  would  have  written  somewhat."  '  One  letter 
more,  and  then  silence. 

And  I  think  the  best  of  the  Reformer  died  out  with 
that  correspondence.  It  is  after  this,  of  course,  that 
he  wrote  that  ungenerous  description  of  his  intercourse 
with  Mrs.  Bowes.     It  is  after  this,  also,  that  we  come 

1  Works,  vi.  pp.  21,  loi,  108,  130.  ^  lb.  vi.  83.  *  lb.  vi.  i2g. 


562  JOHN  KNOX 

to  the  unlovely  episode  of  his  second  marriage.  He 
had  been  left  a  widower  at  the  age  of  fifty-five.  Three 
years  after,  it  occurred  apparently  to  yet  another  pious 
parent  to  sacrifice  a  child  upon  the  altar  of  his  respect 
for  the  Reformer.  In  January  1563,  Randolph  writes 
to  Cecil  :  "  Your  Honor  will  take  it  for  a  great  won- 
der when  I  shall  write  unto  you  that  Mr.  Knox  shall 
marry  a  very  near  kinswoman  of  the  Duke's,  a  Lord's 
daughter,  a  young  lass  not  above  sixteen  years  of 
■ige."  '  He  adds  that  he  fears  he  will  be  laughed  at 
for  reporting  so  mad  a  story.  And  yet  it  was  true  ; 
and  on  Palm  Sunday,  1564,  Margaret  Stewart,  daugh- 
ter of  Andrew  Lord  Stewart  of  Ochiltree,  aged  seven- 
teen, was  duly  united  to  John  Knox,  Minister  of 
St.  Giles's  Kirk,  Edinburgh,  aged  fifty-nine, — to  the 
great  disgust  of  Queen  Mary  from  family  pride,  and  I 
would  fain  hope  of  many  others  for  more  humane  con- 
siderations. "  In  this,"  as  Randolph  says,  "  1  wish 
he  had  done  otherwise."  The  Consistory  of  Geneva, 
*'  that  most  perfect  school  of  Christ  that  ever  was  on 
earth  since  the  days  of  the  Apostles, ' '  were  wont  to 
forbid  marriages  on  the  ground  of  too  great  a  dispro- 
portion in  age.  I  cannot  help  wondering  whether  the 
old  Reformer's  conscience  did  not  uneasily  remind 
him,  now  and  again,  of  this  good  custom  of  his  re- 
ligious metropolis,  as  he  thought  of  the  two-and-forty 
years  that  separated  him  from  his  poor  bride.  Fitly 
enough,  we  hear  nothing  of  the  second  Mrs.  Knox 
until  she  appears  at  her  husband's  deathbed,  eight 

1  Works,  vi.  532. 


AND   HIS  RELATIONS    TO    WOMEN.       363 

years  after.  She  bore  him  three  daughters  in  the  in- 
terval ;  and  I  suppose  the  poor  child's  martyrdom  was 
made  as  easy  for  her  as  might  be.  She  was  "  ex- 
tremely attentive  to  him"  at  the  end,  we  read  ;  and 
he  seems  to  have  spoken  to  her  with  some  confidence. 
Moreover,  and  this  is  very  characteristic,  he  had 
copied  out  for  her  use  a  little  volume  of  his  own  de- 
votional letters  to  other  women. 

This  is  the  end  of  the  roll,  unless  we  add  to  it 
Mrs.  Adamson,  who  had  delighted  much  in  his  com- 
pany "  by  reason  that  she  had  a  troubled  conscience," 
and  whose  deathbed  is  commemorated  at  some  length 
in  the  pages  of  his  history. ' 

And  now,  looking  back,  it  cannot  be  said  that 
Knox's  intercourse  with  women  was  quite  of  the  high- 
est sort.  It  is  characteristic  that  we  find  him  more 
alarmed  for  his  own  reputation  than  for  the  reputation 
of  the  women  with  whom  he  was  familiar.  There  was 
a  fatal  preponderance  of  self  in  all  his  intimacies  : 
many  women  came  to  learn  from  him,  but  he  never 
condescended  to  become  a  learner  in  his  turn.  And 
so  there  is  not  anything  idyllic  in  these  intimacies  of 
his  ;  and  they  were  never  so  renovating  to  his  spirit  as 
they  might  have  been.  But  I  believe  they  were  good 
enough  for  the  women.  I  fancy  the  women  knew 
what  they  were  about  when  so  many  of  them  followed 
after  Knox.  It  is  not  simply  because  a  man  is  always 
fully  persuaded  that  he  knows  the  right  from  the  wrong 
and   sees  his  way  plainly  through  the  maze  of  life, 

>  Works  '•  246. 


364  JOHN  KNOX 

great  qualities  as  these  are,  that  people  will  love  and 
follow  him,  and  write  him  letters  full  of  their  "  earnest 
desire  for  him"  when  he  is  absent.  It  is  not  over  a 
man,  whose  one  characteristic  is  grim  fixity  of  purpose, 
that  the  hearts  of  women  are  "  incensed  and  kindled 
with  a  special  care,"  as  it  were  over  their  natural  chil- 
dren. In  the  strong  quiet  patience  of  all  his  letters 
to  the  weariful  Mrs.  Bowes,  we  may  perhaps  see  one 
cause  of  the  fascination  he  possessed  for  these  religious 
women.  Here  was  one  whom  you  could  besiege  all 
the  year  round  with  inconsistent  scruples  and  com- 
plaints ;  you  might  write  to  him  on  Thursday  that 
you  were  so  elated  it  was  plain  the  devil  was  deceiving 
you,  and  again  on  Friday  that  you  were  so  depressed 
it  was  plain  God  had  cast  you  off  forever  ;  and  he 
would  read  all  this  patiently  and  sympathetically,  and 
give  you  an  answer  in  the  most  reassuring  polysyl- 
lables, and  all  divided  into  heads — who  knows  .'' — like 
a  treatise  on  divinity.  And  then,  those  easy  tears  of 
his.  There  are  some  women  who  like  to  see  men  cry- 
ing ;  and  here  was  this  great-voiced,  bearded  man  of 
God,  who  might  be  seen  beating  the  solid  pulpit  every 
Sunday,  and  casting  abroad  his  clamorous  denuncia- 
tions to  the  terror  of  all,  and  who  on  the  Monday 
would  sit  in  their  parlors  by  the  hour,  and  weep  with 
them  over  their  manifold  trials  and  temptations.  Now- 
adays, he  would  have  to  drink  a  dish  of  tea  with  all 
these  penitents.  ...  It  sounds  a  little  vulgar,  as  the 
past  will  do,  if  we  look  into  it  too  closely.  We  could 
not  let  these  great  folk  of  old  into  our  drawing-rooms. 


AND  Ills  RELATIONS    TO    WOMEN.       365 

Queen  Elizabeth  would  positively  not  be  eligible  for  a 
housemaid.  The  old  manners  and  the  old  customs 
go  sinking  from  grade  to  grade,  until,  if  some  mighty 
emperor  revisited  the  glimpses  of  the  moon,  he  would 
not  find  any  one  of  his  way  of  thinking,  any  one  he 
could  strike  hands  with  and  talk  to  freely  and  without 
offence,  save  perhaps  the  porter  at  the  end  of  the  street, 
or  the  fellow  with  his  elbows  out  who  loafs  all  day  be- 
fore the  public-house.  So  that  this  little  note  of  vul- 
garity is  not  a  thing  to  be  dwelt  upon  ;  it  is  to  be  put 
away  from  us,  as  we  recall  the  fashion  of  these  old  in- 
timacies ;  so  that  we  may  only  remember  Ivnox  as 
one  who  was  very  long-suffering  with  women,  kind  to 
them  in  his  own  way,  loving  them  in  his  own  way — 
and  that  not  the  worst  way,  if  it  was  not  the  best — and 
once  at  least,  if  not  twice,  moved  to  his  heart  of  hearts 
by  a  woman,  and  giving  expression  to  the  yearning  he 
had  for  her  society  in  words  that  none  of  us  need  be 
ashamed  to  borrow. 

And  let  us  bear  in  mind  always  that  the  period  I 
have  gone  over  in  this  essay  begins  when  the  Reformer 
was  already  beyond  the  middle  age,  and  already  broken 
in  bodily  health  :  it  has  been  the  story  of  an  old  man's 
friendships.  This  it  is  that  makes  Knox  enviable. 
Unknown  until  past  forty,  he  had  then  before  him 
five-and-thirty  years  of  splendid  and  influential  life, 
passed  through  uncommon  hardships  to  an  uncommon 
degree  of  power,  lived  in  his  own  country  as  a  sort  of 
king,  and  did  what  he  would  with  the  sound  of  his 
voice  out  of  the  pulpit.     And  besides  all  this,  such  a 


366  JOHN  KNOX. 

following  of  faithful  women  !  One  would  take  the 
first  forty  years  gladly,  if  one  could  be  sure  of  the  last 
thirty.  Most  of  us,  even  if,  by  reason  of  great  strength 
and  the  dignity  of  gray  hairs,  we  retain  some  degree 
of  public  respect  in  the  latter  days  of  our  existence, 
will  find  a  falling  away  of  friends,  and  a  solitude  mak- 
ing itself  round  about  us  day  by  day,  until  we  are  left 
alone  with  the  hired  sick  nurse.  For  the  attraction  of 
a  man's  character  is  apt  to  be  outlived,  like  the  attrac- 
tion of  his  body  ;  and  the  power  to  love  grows  feeble 
in  its  turn,  as  well  as  the  power  to  inspire  love  in 
others.  It  is  only  with  a  few  rare  natures  that  friend- 
ship is  added  to  friendship,  love  to  love,  and  the  man 
keeps  growing  richer  in  affection — richer,  I  mean,  as 
a  bank  may  be  said  to  grow  richer,  both  giving  and 
receiving  more — after  his  head  is  white  and  his  back 
weary,  and  he  prepares  to  go  down  into  the  dust  of 
death. 


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